VCOM 2021 Annual Report

ALUMNI

ALUMNI VIEWS

Urging Students to Take the Challenging Step

Vivek Ramakrishnan, DO, FACOS, FACS VCOM-Virginia, Class of 2009 Neurosurgery, Advanced Neurosurgery Associates, NJ

I think back to my attending physicians during my residency in Southern California, and being a DO back then was very difficult, especially in neurosurgery. There is still some stigma of being a DO in certain specialties, which I want to relay to VCOM alumni and students; you might still experience it. It was a much harder step to take twelve years ago, but I’m glad I took it. I feel lucky for the students now because they have no idea, and for them, it’s just a normal, “I’m going to medical school.” Q: Do you feel that your medical education at VCOM adequately trained you for your postgraduate training? A: VCOM does an amazing job with its mission of training primary care doctors for underserved areas, but I’m the exception to that. I went into a very, very sub-specialized field, but VCOM was there for me also. So I got the whole experience; I feel like their mission was to train me for what I went into. prepared me well. I never felt there was a focus on something else; there was a focus on everybody. The great thing about VCOM is they kind of let you do what you want to do, especially in your third and fourth year. You get to branch out. I was doing rotations all over the United States, and I did an elective rotation in California for neurosurgery. I would say to all the students out there and the people in residency, stick with it. It all pays off in the end, especially the surgical sub-specialties. They’re long because they should be long. After all, you have a lot to learn. ■ VCOM should get a lot of props for what they did to help me. And I mean it because they

Q: How did you realize osteopathic medicine was for you?

A: When I applied for medical school in 2005, osteopathic medicine wasn’t very well known and wasn’t like it is today. Today, it is ubiquitous. Half of the doctors you meet now are DOs; you turn the TV on and find that the White House physician is a DO. I had never met a DO, and I didn’t know what it was. Then when I went home to Southwest Virginia, my family shared with me what the degree meant. One of my brothers, who was working as an internist in East Tennessee, and my dad knew a lot of DOs. My brother was the first person to say to me, “It’s the same as an MD. You should think about it.” So I started shadowing DOs and met some in Southwest Virginia. At that time, VCOM was very new. I had excellent conversations with the head of admissions when I came for interviews, and I loved it. It was stunning because it was a new medical school. I thought, “How awesome is this?” VCOM was beautiful, and the people were wonderful. So it was an easy decision to come to VCOM once I interviewed. It was much more challenging for my generation because we had to deal with the stigma of being a DO.

I admire the older DO attending physicians that I had in medical school and residency.

131