Dr. Melanie Osby
Elected as 2023-24 COM Professor of the Year
As a noteworthy testimony to her instructional talent, leadership, and communication skills, the inaugural class of the 4-Year program selected Pre-Clerkship Course Director Dr. Melanie Osby as Professor of the Year. Dr. Osby is truly homegrown, a microbiologist who completed her initial training at California State University, Los Angeles. She subsequently attended the CDU / UCLA Medical Education Program, graduating with a medical degree in 2000.
Following residency training in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology and a Surgical Pathology Fellowship at LA County / USC Medical Center, she completed subspecialty training in Blood Banking and Transfusion Medicine at Cedars-Sini Medical Center, Dr. Osby previously served as Director of Transfusion Services at the King / Drew Medical Center.
Following a series of promotions, she became Laboratory Director for the Martin Luther King Outpatient Center where she was interviewed for this article. Dr. Osby also completed an MPH in Urban Health with a specialization in Urban Health Disparities at CDU in 2021 – Editor.
To the question of what factors contributed to her success with the first-year students, Dr. Osby stated,“ I think it’ s just seeing myself as one of the students, having already gone through medical school and knowing what you need to actually be successful. Not just in the career, but also how to prepare to take the boards. That was really my focus: to make it really easy to understand. I taught Microbiology and Pathology, two subjects that are generally not very easy to understand for a lot of people because they don’ t take that in undergrad. So, it’ s new. I just try to make it simple, so that everyone could try to understand what we’ re talking about,” she said.
Citing the instruction as a team effort, she noted that her colleagues who taught FM 4 and FM 5 had the same vision in their instructional approach. Course Coordinator
Dr. Melanie Osby
Cheryllynn Santos also played a critical role.“ She was amazing with her help in organizing everything that we were trying to do. If we did not have Cheryllynn, I don’ t think we would have made it,” she added.
The instructors began meeting for both courses beginning in September and met weekly going over topics and who would teach them. There was a combination of factors that established the pathway to success.“ Just having the experience teaching already helped, she said. Dr. Osby had taught at USC’ s Keck Medical School when she was a pathologist there. She had started teaching early on as a resident.“ That was what helped because I already had a lot of lectures that I had planned for Microbiology. I think that if we did not have Dr. Jorge Artaza with the immunology piece, that might not have turned out as great as it was. We were blessed to have him on board. Without the presence of Dr. LaShonda Spencer, Dr. Nancy Klipfel, and Dr. Brian Yee, we would not have been able to do all we did with the team that we had there,” she noted. The presence of additional visiting instructors made the course content complete.
One of the most remarkable things about Dr. Osby’ s accomplishment as Professor of the Year is that this was her first foray as a course director, and the first time being at the level of Co-Director for Microbiology and Pathology.“ Before, I just had the small group sessions when I was teaching at Keck USC. Maybe one lecture. I oversaw the microbiology resident instruction at LA County / USC when I was a faculty attending there. That really helped. My background as a clinical laboratory scientist helped the hands-on work in microbiology, and really understanding the organism so that I could communicate with the students. The students’ general attitude, just passion and wanting to be here, also really helped,” she added.
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 35