Defining Our Difference
by Nicholas Salupo
Chapter Fourth Year Clinical Representative
As osteopathic physicians sit on the eve of a radically new approach to their graduate medical education, we students increasingly have to grapple with that which our predecessors have yelled so loud for so long. We are different. While I believe to my core this is undeniable fact, it is necessary to understand that our difference is much less a series of actions, rather a distinct approach to life and health underscored by three key pillars. That is to say, the osteopathic concept of medicine is a blended combination of osteopathic philosophy, medical science and the osteopathic art, which explain a unique medical practice that our MD colleagues do not discuss in their equal years of quality training and practice.
The osteopathic philosophy is the keystone of thinking around which all of our clinical decision making hinges. Whether we realize it or not, our thought process is unique to the language, attitude, and conviction we promote in our osteopathic training programs. A.T. Still proclaimed it “a scientific knowledge of anatomy and physiology in the hands of a person of intelligence and skill, who can apply that knowledge to the use of man when sick or wounded by strains, shocks, falls, or mechanical derangement or injury of any kind to the body.”1 As revolutionary a thinker as Still was, our medical landscape has evolved since he wrote that in 1902. Our understanding of pathology is deeper and our ability to intervene on medical conditions is rapidly expanding. What we do as a profession can now be described as a complete system of medical care including surgical and pharmaceutical intervention that emphasizes socioemotional care to promote health and prevent disease. This defined mission along with its intentional action creates the lens through which we can osteopathically view every patient every day.
Medical science is the academic pursuit of the anatomic, physiologic, and biochemical composition of the human being. Knowledge of the laws which govern the natural world allow us understand not only why humans remain healthy but also what internal and external derangements occur to make us the victims of disease.
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