Essay on Osteopathic Medicine

Today, as we know it, medicine is getting more and more advanced., but don’t you sometimes wonder who started the development of medicine? Let’s travel way back in time, to the island of Cos, in ancient Greece, around 460 BCE, the famous greek physician, Hippocrates was born. He was not known of much by historians, but Hippocrates had introduced the ways of western medicine, and that is how he became a famous physician, and shaped the medical ways of the modern west. Through this report, you will be introduced to his childhood and how he was the first person in ancient Greece to realize that all illnesses came naturally and was not caused by the gods and goddesses.

As a medical assistant at a nonprofit clinic in Washington, D.C. I have seen firsthand how rampant diseases such as hypertension and diabetes are in disadvantaged communities. I am not naive enough to believe that such diseases can one day be fully eradicated from disadvantaged communities, but I do think that we can try harder to reduce them. I want to join a network of people who share my vision of improving preventive medicine in disadvantaged communities and for that reason I am choosing to pursue a career in osteopathic

Osteopetrosis is a rare, genetic disease that causes extremely dense and brittle bones. This is because individuals affected with osteopetrosis do not have normal osteoclasts, which bones need to work correctly. Healthy bones require properly functioning osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Osteoblasts are responsible for making new bones and osteoclasts are bone cells that are responsible for bone resorption, which is the breaking down of bones and providing space for new bone marrow to grow. An individual with osteopetrosis has osteoclasts that do not function properly, therefore their bones are not healthy (Stocks, Wang, Thompson, Stocks, & Horwitz, 1998).

This can include Chiropractor, Yoga, Massage and many other treatments. D.O. physicians are fully trained and are licensed doctors. They have attended and graduated from an Osteopathic medical school. Osteopathic Doctors receive extra training in the musculoskeletal system than an MD doctor. There are currently “30 osteopathic medical schools in 42 locations throughout the United States” (American Osteopathic Association , 2015). Each college has an estimate of about 4 years in the program to graduate with a D.O. degree. There are than 18 specialty certifying boards through the American Osteopathic

Dr. William Halsted was pivotal in perfecting surgical procedures and techniques that are still in use in modern times, regardless that they were created over 100 years ago. In the late nineteenth century, Halsted improved sanitary conditions in his residing hospitals in both New York and Baltimore, invented revolutionary surgical procedures, anesthetic practices, and created aseptic techniques to combat the frequency of infections and diseases that occurred post-surgery (William Stewart Halsted, 2007). Besides his contributions to the medical field, Halsted was one of four founders of Johns Hopkins, a prestigious medical college that still exists today (William Stewart Halsted).

Through the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) Mentor Program I was able to meet Dr. Phuc Huynh, DO, an osteopathic physician specializing in family medicine, who was excited to share his profession with me. Through Dr. Huynh’s mentorship, I was able to gain a higher understanding of the osteopathic profession and witness how it will allow me to practice compassionate, patient-centered medicine.

German chemist and physician Samuel Hahnemann takes the credit for founding another to traditional medicinal practises. Greater than 200 years ago, Dr. Hahnemann developed a medical system identified today as homeopathy. In 1779, Dr. Hahnemann finished his medicine course and started some practice. He started performing his homeopathic experiments 11 years later, having a humane medical approach in mind. Hahnemann's disenchantment with some of the inhumane issues with traditional medicine, for example using toxic substances, blood transfusion, and purging, pushed him to develop an alternate strategy to treat various illnesses. As outlined by Dr. Hahnemann, a creative way to cure diseases is to perform it quickly and mildly with permanent and safe results.

The impact that a badly sleeping baby has on its parents is, in one word, draining. Tired parents who try to continue to function normally while go about their daily tasks often resemble cast members from the Walking Dead zombie television show. There are a number of reasons why your baby may not be sleeping well. If you have ruled out medical issues with your paediatrician, an osteopath who is experienced in cranial manipulation should be next on your list to investigate. While putting your baby's head in a stranger's hands may immediately raise concern, there is a good reason why they can help your baby sleep better at night.

     Osteoporosis is a health ailment which causes bones to become so porous that they can break easily. Osteoporosis literally means 'porous bones'. The bones in our skeleton are made of a thick outer shell and a strong inner mesh filled with collagen [protein], calcium salts and other minerals. The inside looks like honeycomb, with blood vessels and bone marrow in the spaces between bone. Osteoporosis occurs when the holes between bone become bigger, making it fragile and liable to break easily. Osteoporosis usually affects the whole skeleton but it most commonly causes breaks or fractures to bone in the wrist, spine and hip.

For most of my life I have valued, and sought to seek connections in all aspects of my life. The connections between neighbors, family, friends, and communities. Because it is these very connections, these unifying fibers, that are essential to thriving relationships. The reasons that I am interested in becoming an osteopathic physician are varied, but if I were to condense them into three distinct reasons they would be: (1) Osteopathic physicians seek connections in their everyday practice, (2) Osteopathic physicians see the whole person, not just a conglomerate of body parts, (3) Osteopathic physicians, from as far as I have seen, have lasting stronger relationships with their patients. Just like I highlighted connections in the beginning of my answer I would like to underscore them once again, because I believe they are representative of my three reasons as to why I want to become an osteopathic physician.

During the early 19th century there was the beginning of a new movement to revolutionize medicine. In 1892 a physician by the name of Andrew Still, MD as a protest against the conventional medical system founded the American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville, MO. Still believed strongly that the current medical system of the time was full of corruption, not efficient and was in the habit of treating the disease and illness and did not worry about the underlying issues that caused the affliction to begin with. Still founded Osteopathy during a time in which he believed that conventional medicine was doing more harm than it was good.

The word chiropractic come from two Greek words, cheir, and praktos. Cheir, meaning hand, and pracktos meaning done (ACA, 2016), therefore meaning done by hand. Along with this, the name was picked by the creator of chiropractic, Daniel David Palmer. Palmer was an avid reader of scientific novels, throughout his reading he found multiple forms of manipulation that no one had truly named or developed this method, nor did anyone truly know their effects on the body. After extensive study of anatomy and physiology, he made a major contribution to the science of chiropractic (ACA, 2016). The first time Palmer actually put his knowledge to the test was in September of 1895. There was a janitor who was deaf seventeen years prior the time he felt something wrong in his back (ACA, 2016). After examining him, Palmer gave him an “adjustment” to his upper back and immediately after the janitor noticed that he had better hearing. After that first adjustment, Palmer proceeded to enhance. Later, in 1897, he established the Palmer School of Cure which is now known as Palmer College of Chiropractic (ACA, 2016). After awhile, people started hearing about what Palmer was doing and it slowly became popular. Then in 1913, the first law licensing chiropractors was passed, and within twenty years of that, it was practiced in 39 different

I shadowed multiple physicians from various specialties, as I worked to confirm my desire to become a physician. Out of all of them, Dr. Brian Loveless, a family practice physician who utilizes osteopathic manipulative medicine, stood out to me the most. My time shadowing him at The Patient Care Center at Western University of Health Sciences exposed me to the philosophy of osteopathic medicine. Using osteopathic manipulative treatment techniques like high-velocity, low-amplitude, he was able to relieve patients of their pains or aches during the visit, without providing any medications. It was these moments that taught me the effectiveness about the philosophy of osteopathic medicine. As Dr. Loveless stated regarding one patient, he was treating

Osteoporosis is a disease characterized by low bone mass and deterioration of bone tissues, leading to bone fragility and, consequently, an increase in fracture risk. The term osteoporosis comes from the Greek word osteon , meaning bone, and porus , meaning pore or passage. Osteoporosis literally makes bones porous. The amount of calcium stored in human bones decreases over time, causing the skeleton to weaken.

Vitamin intake is a commonly overlooked necessity in basic nutritional health. What most people do not know is that certain vitamin deficiencies can cause many health risks and problems. Many people believe that are getting all the vitamins they need from their diet, however most of the time they are not. One of the most common vitamin deficiencies is the low intake of Vitamin D. There are some vitamins that are produced by the body such as vitamin K; however some of the most important vitamins are not produced by the body. Vitamin D is one of the vitamins that our body needs to function correctly that is not naturally produced by the body. Vitamin D can be consumed through