Beyond the Degree: Training High-Impact Physician-Leaders with Dr. Shane Speights

A medical degree can teach you anatomy, pharmacology, and how to pass boards, but it cannot automatically teach you how to change the health of a whole region. That’s the gap we dig into with Dr. Shane Speights, Dean of NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University, as we explain what we mean by “More Than A Medical School” and why fit matters as much as prestige for medical school applicants.

We talk about the mission behind NYITCOM Arkansas and why it was built in the Delta: physician workforce shortages, rural healthcare access, and the need for more frontline doctors in family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and other primary care fields. Dr. Speights shares how a simple media interview about the flu vaccine made him realize the scale of education and advocacy, and why we want future physicians to show up not only in exam rooms but also in community decision-making that shapes health outcomes.

We also break down what it means to be a DO (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine): the same foundation as MD training, plus a whole-person, prevention-forward mindset and extra hours of hands-on osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT). From there, we get practical about what truly separates training models, including how community-based clinical rotations can put students directly beside attending physicians, building confidence and readiness for residency.

If you’re choosing between multiple acceptances or wondering where you’ll grow the most, this conversation gives you a clear lens for evaluating mission, training, and impact. Subscribe for more, share this with a premed who’s deciding where to apply, and leave a review with the kind of physician you hope to become. @Arkansasstatemedianetwork.

0:00 Introduction and the Why Behind This School 1:17 The Impact of Medical Education and Servant Leadership 2:56 Defining "More Than a Medical School" 5:44 The NYIT and Arkansas State Partnership Story 8:02 Brand Recognition: The Value of the NYIT Name 8:37 Addressing the Arkansas Physician Shortage 9:51 Intentional Location: Serving the Delta Region  10:45 What is a DO? The Osteopathic Mindset 13:34 Focus on Preventative Medicine and Wellness 15:13 Curricular Rigor: MD vs. DO Training 16:22 The Primary Care Mission and Rural Need 18:11 Recruiting for Local Practice and Regional Growth 20:30 Differentiators: Population Health and Advocacy 21:42 The Community-Based Rotation Advantage 24:46 From Third-Year Clinicals to Local Contracts 25:41 Why Future Students Choose NYITCOM Arkansas 27:00 Resources and Next Steps

Transcript

Welcome And Why This School

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to the More Than a Medical School podcast, part of the Arkansas State Media Network. I'm Casey Pierce. I'm the director of external relations and marketing for NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University. We're a medical school that operates in partnership with Arkansas State here on its Jonesboro campus. And throughout this series, we've provided medical school applicants with some information about how to navigate that process. Some of our students have told you about some of the challenges of medical school or given you some advice on things that they've wanted to know. But we're to the point where we're going to tell you specifically about why you should choose our medical school. So today we're going to talk about one of our favorite topics, our school. I'm pleased to be joined by Dr. Shane Spites. He's the dean of NYIT Commodore State, and that's a job that he's had for nine years now. And uh, Dr. Spites, um, I want we're gonna tell people a little bit about our school, our profession, but I want to start here. Um, you wear a lot of different hats, uh, do a lot of different things. You're a family medicine physician, you're a public health officer, you're a medical educator. Why specifically medical education? Why is that something you've decided to build your career

The Moment Education Scaled

SPEAKER_01 1:16

around? Thanks, Casey.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

And I'll be honest with you, sometimes, you know, doors just open and you didn't realize it was going to be there. And that's kind of how this happened to me. Um, I was actually working as an attending physician, um, teaching residents, and I got a call, got a call from a local media group. It was a TV station. They said, Hey, we wanted you to do a spot on the flu vaccine. I thought, you know what, I got a face for radio. I'm not really somebody that needs to be on the TV. And they said, No, no, it'll be fine, it'll be fine. We'll make it easy on you. So they came and it was a pretty short interview about why people should get the flu vaccine. Um, the uh reporter made it really easy for me. And so I sat down and had that conversation. Um, and then afterwards, um, the next day, I said, Hey, uh, appreciate you making that easy for me. I feel like I was just talking to a patient. Um, and I said, But I'm curious how many, how many people saw that? And he said, Well, he said, it ran on the five, the six, and the 10. He said, probably about 300,000 people. And I stopped right there and I realized that in my clinics, I may see 12, 15 patients in a half day and talk to them about their uh lifestyle, the importance of vaccination, taking their medications, controlling their blood pressure. In that short 30, 45-second interview, I reached over 300,000 people. And that's what really struck me as uh how important medical education is, and how important education is to the community, and how more physicians and healthcare providers need to be involved. That's not something that should just be contained in the four walls of a clinic or in a hospital room. And so that's really what we try to bring to our medical school and the training of our medical students is that servant leadership.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

And we're gonna talk a lot about that, but we titled this podcast, More Than a Medical School. We're gonna get to how our school was founded and um kind of the ins and outs, trying to help people understand a little bit more about who we are

Defining More Than Medical School

SPEAKER_01 3:08

specifically. But I think the why is the most important thing before we get to that. What does more than a medical school mean to you and why is that a moniker we've taken on?

SPEAKER_00 3:17

So that is a phrase that we coined um uh several years ago. And and it's it's interesting because whenever I speak to potential students, the admissions group kind of cringes or like, oh, not sure we want you to say that. Because sometimes I'll say, you know, we not be we we may not be the right school for you. We may not be the medical school you need to come to. Because you can go to pretty much any medical school and become a doctor. You can. I mean, you can go to pretty much any any school is going to teach you anatomy and physiology and pharmacology. They're gonna help you pass your board exams and help you get into a good residency. You know, there's lots of options in terms of medical schools for that. We're different. And we want to create a different kind of physician. And because of that, we recruit a different kind of student for that mission. And what I mean by that is that we want graduates that are involved in the community, that are involved in health policy, that are at the table around city council meetings and corn court meetings, that are advocating for their patients at a local, state, and national level. To be honest with you, and I'll take ownership of this, even my physician generation, we weren't that good at that. And to be honest with you, because of that, our patients and our profession kind of suffered. We have to have a generation of physicians that is not only willing to take care of the patient in front of them, but the patient they may never see. The patient that sees them, you know, in the grocery store or at church or at a local football game that they may never truly have contact with, but they affect it through their ability to impact policy, to impact change in the community, to really make the community and the and the area around them a better place.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Yeah, we always say it's a big commitment to, you know, our students have an opportunity to go a lot of different places. And so when we get to share with them what makes us unique and what's different, uh, the ones that we do end up with here, it just impactful to say that they're on board with what we're trying to do here.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Such amazing students doing amazing things, you know, and and sometimes I'm kind of I'm like, gosh, they're just they're so much better than I was when I was a medical student. Like, all I can do is medical school. Like these students are doing such amazing things. And then when they get out and graduate, like they're involved in in national, um, uh, national groups, or they're running for office, or they're they're truly just being involved in like um hospital administration, they're involved in committees. And so not only are they practicing medicine, but again, they're changing the culture and the climate around them.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

And we'll get into a little bit more about what that looks

How NYIT And Arkansas State Partnered

SPEAKER_01 5:46

like. But one of the places I want to start, uh, one unique thing about our school is the way that it's set up. I mentioned that we are in partnership with uh New York Institute of Technology, with Arkansas State University. I know when you speak sometimes and that New York name's up there, you say, I don't sound like I'm from New York. Uh so we kind of have to explain that to people. Tell us about how the relationship between NYIT uh came about and what's unique about how it started. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

So, first of all, I don't sound like I'm from New York because I'm not from New York. So I was born and raised in Arkansas and actually southern Arkansas. Um, attended college uh here in Arkansas. I went to medical school in Missouri and then came back and did my family medicine training here in the state as well. This is such a neat partnership. Um, and really we owe it all to our founding dean, Dr. Barbara Ross Lee, who is just quite an innovator and just a national figure in her own right. Um and she saw the opportunity for them, at that time she was vice president at NYIT to partner with Arkansas State. So, Arkansas State was wanting to start a medical school, and they wanted to partner with an osteopathic school because they knew of the track record of osteopathic medical schools and producing physicians in needed areas. Arkansas continually at the time was ranking at the very bottom of the of the nation in terms of number of physicians per capita. And so the partnership between NYIT and Arkansas State, the idea was to help bridge that gap in terms of meeting the physician workforce needs here in Arkansas, and specifically in underserved and rural areas in the Delta. And so that was the mission of the school from the beginning in terms of how we were started. Um, such a fascinating partnership when you think about probably one of the more rural areas of the country, partnering is one of the more urban areas of the country. Uh, but it's been such a phenomenal relationship. Um, it's been a great partnership. And I think that um really the proofs are the pudding in terms of where where our physicians are going, where they're great, where they're uh practicing, and really the outcomes that we're seeing.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

So we call ourselves NYIT Com EdA State. Right. I'm the proud Arkansas State alum. Your family, obviously, deep roots with Arkansas State. But we work for NYIT in New York. We're based here in Arkansas, and it's just been a partnership that's given our students a lot of uh resources on both ends. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

We um, you know, one of the things, and I don't know that I really appreciate it early on, but when you talk about residency application, when you talk about, you know, going to programs all over the country, um that NYIT brand means something. And so that's a big deal. When you talk about NYIT, they've been a medical school there on Long Island since uh 1975. They have 325 students per class, one of the largest medical schools uh really in the region there and in the in the northeast and across the country. Um, just such an amazing institution of itself, to be able to have that brand recognition nationally is extremely helpful.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

So fortunately, we've seen a lot of growth in medical education in Arkansas uh over the last decade. But when we opened our doors, it had been 130 years since the medical school had opened in Arkansas. That's a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

It is a big deal. And when you think about a state of 3.3 million people, and at that time you had one public institution that was graduating about 150 physicians a year, only about half of them actually stayed here to do residency. And so now you're looking at a really small number, which there's no surprise that we had the workforce shortage that we did. Um, and so yeah, so here we are, not only the first osteopathic medical school in the state, but only the second medical school in over 130 years. Um, and so when you talk about the impact, and really we were uh we were number two, but now there's four medical schools in the state of Arkansas. So we kind of created a trend, uh, which is nothing but positive uh for the people of the state, the people of this region of the country to be able to have more physicians. Um there's there's certainly shortages all over. Arkansas is not the only place, but across the south, we're seeing those physician shortages, and it's nice to see the growth of medical education and graduate medical education in this area of the state and in this region.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

But one thing that is unique, while there are four, we're the only one on this half of the state, and that's very intentional as well.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

No, absolutely. And that was the the one of the biggest pieces. We're physically located in the Delta. And so for us and for our students to be able to physically go out and be a part of the solution in terms of these communities of need, we've got partnerships all over this region and all down into the Delta to try to deliver on that mission of making a difference uh in terms of the the lives of people, in terms of reducing the um uh the number of premature deaths, in terms of uh affecting infant mortality, maternal mortality. I mean, a lot of things that that our state and the states around us struggle with, we're trying to impact those now. And that's one of the things that our uh medical students understand, and certainly applicants need to understand. When you come to our school, you'll start affecting change before you ever graduate. And that's intentional, is that you're part of the community, you're part of the solution, you're part of delivering care um in an area that desperately needs it.

What A DO Really Means

SPEAKER_01 10:45

So we're an osteopathic medical school. You're you're an osteopathic physician. So if a patient sees you in clinic, instead of saying MD after your name, it says Theo. That's right. And I think is uh again, we're the first osteopathic school here. So over the last decade, I think there's some familiarity that has grown there, but I do still think people um people all probably often ask you to explain uh the the difference, the similarity. So when you get that question, how do you answer simply what is a DO?

SPEAKER_00 11:11

You know, it's funny, and I've and every once in a while I would get it uh when I was worse. So I worked as a hospitalist for a while, I worked in the emergency room, was an ER doctor. Most of the time a patient didn't see that and didn't ask. And to be honest with you, I bet a lot of patients don't even recognize the difference. They just see it's a physician taking care of them, whether it be a surgeon, whether it be a pediatrician, you know, regardless, they don't look at the letters. But every once in a while you'll hear the hey, I don't see EMD, you're a DO, what's the difference? Um, and truthfully, it's it's a mindset. It's an overall mindset that started uh way back in the late 1800s, um, really at a time where medicine wasn't fulfilling the need of the population. And the idea is that, um, and I'll always remember some of these sayings from our founder, Dr. Andrew Taylor still, you know, anybody can find disease, but it's really the charge of the physician to find health. And I know that's kind of a big deal now, kind of a so so, so to speak, like a buzz phrase. Wellness is a real thing. And when you see an osteopathic physician, you should see a difference. And what I mean by that is even for an acute visit, it should be a conversation about, well, what did you have for breakfast? You know, how much exercise do you get during a week? How much sleep are you getting now? And tell me about your connections in terms of mental wellness, you know, friends, family, faith, and that sort of thing. That should be part of really any interaction with a physician. You'd be surprised how many times we can uh really unearth other things that need to be discussed just in those brief conversations. But there's other tools in the tool belt as well. We practice osteopathic manipulative treatment, which is a hands-on approach where we really um do a lot of time in anatomy looking at the structure and function of the human body, how it relates to itself, and how we can remove restrictions to really increase wellness. Um, you know, some people say, well, that kind of sounds like chiropractic medicine. Well, you know, chiropractic medicine was a branch off of osteopathic medicine. But we do practice, we truly practice holistic care. Um we only prescribe medications when they're needed. I can prescribe any medication that any other physician can, but I'm gonna be judicious about that. Not everybody needs an antibiotic for their runny nose. Not everybody needs, you know, a steroid shot for their um acute upper respiratory infection. You know, sometimes it's like, let's let's think this through. And so, again, it's the idea of finding wellness and looking at the whole person in terms of the approach to the individual patient.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

And preventative medicine, preventative health uh is a big part of that. You know, one of the examples I heard somebody say sometime, one time is yes, I can give you a pill to uh address your hypertension, your high blood pressure. But if we're not talking about your diet and your exercise and your sleep, you're you're gonna be relying on that pill for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

That's a great point. And then that kind of brings me into something else. Uh, here in the U.S., we do a really good job of disease care, which means that after you get sick, after you have high blood pressure, after you have diabetes, heart failure, after you have, you know, whatever uh ailment it may be, then we can treat you. We don't do a good job of actual health care, or as you said, the preventative piece. That's where the physician really should be coming in and having a lot more of those conversations. It shouldn't be that we're waiting for you to get sick and then having those conversations. And that's why, certainly on the osteopathic side, we really make it an intention to try to have those conversations as many times as we can. And it feels strange, and sometimes I can see it on my patient's face when they come into the clinic and they're there, they're just there for some allergy symptoms, or they're there to, you know, get a um get a physical exam or um, you know, something of that nature. Um, and we're going through all these things. And I'm asking about how many hours of sleep they got last night. But that's what we talk about when we talk about wellness, um, because we can do a better job here in the U.S. And I really believe that osteopathic medicine um has a lot of keys to that success.

Primary Care Mission And Rural Need

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Absolutely. There are very distinguishable traits of uh from DOs and MDs, and and we're very proud of uh of some of those, but does that ever cause misconceptions or the things you kind of have to iron out there?

SPEAKER_00 15:13

It can. A lot of times uh people may think, well, you know, so you didn't you didn't learn everything, you know, that that they learned in an MD school, or you didn't get that that, you know, you didn't get the best training. Uh when you look at the curriculum, the MD and DO models, um, everybody learns gross anatomy, everybody learns physiology and pharmacology and pathophysiology. Um, actually, on the DO program, both both programs, MD and DO are four years long. Um, now all of the residency programs are combined. So DOs and MDs both go to the same residency programs. DO students do spend more time in terms of a curricular side because we have the osteopathic manipulative training that goes on during medical school. And so there's about, you know, two to three hundred, um, sometimes 400 more hours of training that goes on to be able to do the hands-on approach, uh, which is really assessing a patient, assessing dysfunction, um, you know, which comes in very handy with a lot of things that we see in the clinic in terms of acute back pain, shoulder pain, knee pain, uh, those kinds of things. A lot of times we can take care of those without any medications or intervention uh surgically, which obviously the patients appreciate.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

One distinguishable thing about osteopathic physicians is uh they're twice as likely to practice in a rural or underserved area. They're twice as likely to practice one of the frontline or primary care specialties, family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics. So why are those things important? I mean, that was part of the reason why Arkansas State pursued an osteopathic partner specifically, correct?

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Absolutely, because that's really where the need was for the state of Arkansas for my workforce need is we needed frontline physicians. We needed physicians who were going to be seeing patients at the front line, general pediatricians, general surgeons, family medicine physicians, internal medicine physicians. Um, that was really where the biggest need was. Um, and so from our roots in osteopathic medicine, a large percentage go into the primary care or the frontline medicine fields to be able to practice that. And it's not that we don't have students go into all kinds of specialties. We have students match into urology and anesthesiology and dermatology and quite a few go into orthopedics. So we have that, and we're we're thankful of that that they take the osteopathic philosophy into those specialties. But truly, our mission is to produce physicians who are going to be in needed communities practicing the medicine that's needed for that population. And that's why I feel we're very successful in terms of the types of doctors we graduate. We average about 25 to 27% of our graduates go into family medicine. That's amazing when you consider the national average is around 10% for any medical school. So we're well over twice, almost three times the amount that go into family medicine. We're proud of that fact. We really are. That is something we strive to do. And as we continue to expand our sphere of influence and our geopolitical state, so to speak, uh, we plan to do that with graduate medical education. We plan to train the types of physicians that are needed in the communities where they need to serve.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Obviously, we recruit students from all over the country, but our focus is we you we want students to practice in our catchment area, our our area of emphasis. And we know that students that are from this area are much more likely to stay here to practice.

Why Students Come And Stay

SPEAKER_01 18:24

When you talk about our philosophy, our programs, what we offer to uh the future doctor, why should someone from the Delta, specifically from Arkansas, be interested in what we're doing specifically?

SPEAKER_00 18:36

So we do try to target um uh students uh from this region of the country. And the reason why is because from a data standpoint, they're more likely to stay here and practice uh and really practice in the areas that we need. And again, the mission from day one was to fulfill the workforce shortage, physician workforce shortage here in the state of Arkansas and in the Delta region, which includes Mississippi, Tennessee, down into Louisiana. And so that's absolutely our focus. So trying to get more students from Arkansas, from the Delta, from an attachment, attaching state, that's always been our focus. Um, they're more likely to practice, they're more likely to settle down, they've grown up in these areas. And again, the data just supports that being um one of the ways that you can you can fulfill those shortages. But it's not that we don't get students from around the country. And one of the neat things that we see is we'll have students that come from Michigan or um, you know, um Montana, California, and have never been to Arkansas. They come here for medical school. Um and that's been interesting because a good number of them look around and say, you know what, this this isn't a bad place to practice medicine. And, you know, the cost of living is pretty cheap, and um, you know, I can get a lot more for my money. And so um, a number of them, a significant number, have stayed here, gone to residency, and now practice in the state. That's a huge win for us. So anyway, we we we do see both sides.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

And what would you say would draw students? You mentioned we have one of our graduates who's from Minnesota and is now practicing in Jonesboro with one of our partners and another from Arizona that I can speak of just anecdotally specifically. What is the pull to stay here? I think when they come here, it's not only that this is a great place to live, but when they see the needs and the opportunity, I think that's yeah, specific to speak to that student that's not from Arkansas that may be considering our school.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

You know, um, and this kind of goes back to um certainly if you're not from this area, why would you want to come here? One of the things I can promise you is that you'll get the tools to not only practice excellent medicine, but to be a physician that can practice compassionate care, that can advocate for your patients and your profession wherever you are, um, and that really will bring a special flair to wherever you're practicing. Um, again, we've got so many opportunities and so many expectations in of our students that come here. You know, every one of our students not only graduates with their degree in osteopathic medicine, they all graduate with a certificate population health. That's a separate curriculum that's required of all of our students because we think it's that important. We have other opportunities in terms of being involved in our congressional fellowship program, which is more of policy advocacy. Um, but in terms of being able to rotate and clinically be exposed to sites that are needed, I promise you our students stand out head and shoulders above other applicants for residency programs purely because of where they do their rotations or clinical rotations and how they're how they're trained and how they're prepared for residency.

Community Rotations That Build Confidence

SPEAKER_01 21:42

You mentioned their clinical training, that that's a differentiator between osteopathic schools as well. Many MD schools operate a large health system. And so their students uh do their third and fourth year mostly in their own system. Most osteopathic schools go partner with community hospitals. For their clinical rotations. That's unique to us. That's something we've got students all across Arkansas, a little bit into Missouri, a little bit into Tennessee, a little bit into Louisiana, where they do their rotations. And that's on purpose. And you mentioned the experience that they get in those places definitely impacts the type of physician they're going to be. This is really important.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

And I hope if you're not listening to any of it, listen to this piece right here. For those of you that are applying to medical school and looking at where you want to go, the community-based training programs offer you a unique and a step above in terms of your clinical training. And let me explain to you why. In the traditional academic medical training center, as a medical student, you are with a larger group of other medical students. And so usually as a third-year student, you're going to be there with other third years and then some fourth years, and then you'll have some uh residents and fellows. So there's multiple levels between you and the attending physician. When you rotate in community-based hospitals, and some of these community-based hospitals are three or four hundred beds. So it's not like it's a little 50-bed hospital. There typically aren't uh there's not that layer in between you. So you work directly with the surgeon, you work directly with the ER doctor, you work directly with the NICU physician or the intensivist or the cardiologist or the pediatrician. Those experiences we have found, and over the last 10 years of us being here, that sets our students apart. Because what happens is, is when they go to do their audition rotations in their fourth year, where they're trying to get the residencies they want, they shine because they can hit the ground running, because they've been there, done that before. They've admitted three chest pains just in the last week. So they know how to run down and do that. They can take care of the acute abdomen. They know how to prep a patient for surgery because they did that on their previous rotation. These are things that, to be honest with you, in the academic medical centers, they may read about, they may see they are certainly not involved in. And that's one of the big advantages in osteopathic medicine is about the community-based training. We have sites, as you've mentioned, all over the state, um, and even uh some outside the state that provide a phenomenal experience in terms of you being prepared to not only shine on a residency rotation, but when you enter residency, you'll be a you'll be a step ahead of everybody else in terms of your skills and being able to really kind of hit the ground running. There's not a there's not a ramp up. I used to work for an ACGME residency program. I was an associate program director. We always kind of cringed at July when we got brand new, uh, brand new residents in, but a resident that stood out was one who had done all that work before, and we didn't have to have a lot of oversight. So it makes a big difference for you in terms of your overall career.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

And we've had students that get assigned to a place and they're a little bit disappointed. Maybe they wanted to be in a bigger town or something like that, but then they go there and the experience that they get that you're talking about, they uh will just glow about how it made them a better physician. And we've also got stories where people would have never considered going back to this small town in Arkansas to practice that because they built that relationship in their third year, they've now signed contracts to go back.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Oh, absolutely. I just I can't, I can't overemphasize that kind of experience uh enough. Um, and I don't think you realize it until you're in it. And it's like, wait a minute, what do you mean I'm delivering the baby? I'm just a third-year medical student. Well, because you've got the attending physician standing right there, and there's no other fellow resident, uh, fourth year medical student trying to push you out of the way to do it. I mean, you get all of the experiences. It's just, it's just an amazing learning opportunity. And I I wish more medical

Choosing NYITCOM Arkansas And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 25:40

schools did it.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

All right, as we close here, I want to give you an opportunity to talk to our future students. Medical students are in high demand, and uh a lot of our students that that we bring in here, they make their choice between three, four, five schools where they've been accepted. Our students that we offer that acceptance to, why do they, why should they choose to come here?

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Again, I'm gonna go back to kind of how we started this. Um, and and so again, my my admissions team kind of kind of will cringe. If you just want to get a medical degree, if you just want to be a physician, MD, or DO, then, you know, to be honest with you, you can go anywhere. I mean, go someplace that's, you know, maybe better financially for you or that's closer to home or something like that. But if you truly want to invest in your career, you want to be the best physician that you can be, that can not only practice excellent medicine, but can help take care of the community around you, be involved in decision making at the local, state, and federal level of your profession, being involved in decisions that truly affect your patients and your patient population, and be able to learn the skills to be able to navigate all of that. That's why you come to our medical school. We will give you those skills. I promise you, we will put you in those situations. You'll get stretched and you'll learn a lot, but you'll be a better person. You'll be an outstanding physician when you graduate.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

That's good stuff, Dr. Spite. So we've hope you've enjoyed our conversation. You've learned a little bit about our medical school and our profession in general. If you'd like to learn more, you're welcome to visit us at nyit.edu slash Arkansas to see what's happening on our campus on a day-to-day basis. Feel free to follow us on social media. Our handles are at NYIT com A R, as in NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine, Arkansas. We hope you've enjoyed our conversation. Look forward to visiting with you again soon. Thanks.