VCOM View Vol 11 No 1

Forging Lasting Relationships through Osteopathic Medicine by Sara Jamison and James Nichols

Caroline Summers, DO, reflects on her VCOM relationships and how the SP program prepared her for practice. C aroline Summers and her husband John were high school sweethearts who both decided to go into clinical medicine and earned their DO degrees from VCOM-Virginia, with Caroline graduating in 2013 and John in 2015. While at VCOM, they met and became acquainted with members of the Lojocano family in student services and the standardized patient (SP) program. Even after graduation and a subsequent move to North Carolina, the two families kept in touch. “We kept in touch with Matt and Mollie Lojocano while I was in residency,” Summers says. “They were moving to the Raleigh area,

and they were going to work at NC State. So we always just kept in touch and said well if and when we move back to the area we’d love to stay in touch and reconnect and then we did. It worked out,” added Summers. Mollie then became Dr. Summers’ patient after her family moved to Raleigh, and she ended up delivering the Lojocanos child, Virginia. As a student, Dr. Summers found that the SP process prepared her for real life. “You may have clinical knowledge but applying it to a live person is different,” Summers said. “It helped me with COMLEX PE tests. It made me feel comfortable since VCOM had prepared us for this timed patient encounter format. I’m thankful that I had so much experience to get comfortable with live patients.”

“An important part of learning at VCOM was upholding the osteopathic principle of considering the whole person: mind, body and spirit,” Summers said, contrasting the osteopathic to the allopathic approach. “It’s a thought process of going through not only looking at a patient’s symptoms and their vital signs but also taking a step back to recognize there may be more, and why the patient is here. Sometimes there seems to be a disconnect between their chief complaint and why they’re actually there. Then it turns out that there may be some social situation or something potentially psychological. It’s important to recognize that sometimes. I ask how can I help you beyond just what you’re telling me?” ■

winter 2021 | VCOM V iew M agazine 23