How is keeping ties with UNE COM important to you?
I come back once or twice a year. I've been doing that since I got back from my residency training in Chicago. In 1996, I got back to the Pennsylvania area and connected with the school and came back to teach. I actually worked with the anatomist, Dr. Cross, when he was here. He and I worked to do the fresh tissue, and since I started the Emergency Medicine Club when I was a student here, I figured I'd come back and teach them. We utilized the fresh tissue to teach them airway procedures. As things progress and change, we don’t have fresh tissue anymore. I still come back and work with the Emergency Medicine Club. It also motivates the students to come to the national programs. Last year, the American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians did a training with the Chicago Fire Department. We did a mass casualty drill, and needed bodies. We had 94 victims, and a good portion of volunteers were from here. I’m coming to UNE COM in two weeks to do a program that the military get before they are deployed. We get the students prepared. I come back to teach the club every year because I started it, and the students are still continuing the club. We developed a program where I bring my tactical providers up. These are paramedics, PhDs, and nurses who work with the SWAT team. We bring them up here to see where things are supposed to be in the body before something bad happens to the person, and the students take the tactical team into the anatomy lab to show them the dissected bodies. It’s a win- win.
You continue to be a part of UNE COM by taking in students. How did this start?
When I was at Reading Hospital, it was the busiest ER in the state of Pennsylvania, so students are going to see a lot there. There were times when students wanted to come down and rotate, and if I heard that they were coming down to our area, or they were formally rotating with me, I would invite them to a home cooked meal. My wife Linda has learned that there may be some new faces coming to town. It’s really been a matter of showing an interest in them, and if I do that, down the road, they'll do the same for someone else.