by Marly Solebello, MEd
Spotlight Story
UNE COM GOES GLOBAL
Anyone who has trained to become a physician, or works at a medical school, can attest to the widely professed anecdote that one becomes a physician to help people. In fact, one UNE COM alumna, who has been practicing for over 30 years, suggests that it is not a desire- it’s a calling. While the field of medicine in and of itself is steeped in facts of biology, chemistry and anatomy, the practice of medicine is objectively not so objective; simply put, it is not that simple.
This concept is epitomized within the osteopathic principles themselves: treating the body, mind and spirit together in order to achieve medical symbiosis. The spirit part of the triad is seemingly void of all science, and yet the culmination of a person (the body, mind, and spirit) may help us better understand a mother who dies from heartbreak within days of losing a child. Humans are not simplistic and aren’t so easily compartmentalized into convenient, definitive measurements. As such, there are social determinants of health that affect our local communities and across the world. Maslow isn’t the only one to posit that if children are without clean drinking water, how can they pay attention in a hot schoolhouse. Without adequate nutrition, how are they to learn in the classroom?
Chris Frothingham, DO '01 and COM students stop momentarily for a picture outside a clinic in Panama