Structure and Function - An Osteopathic Approach to Addressing Pain

Chronic pain and structural issues frequently get masked by reactive prescriptions rather than treated at the biological source. As patients increasingly demand proactive, whole-body wellness over temporary symptom management, understanding the true depth of your medical options has never been more critical. In this episode, Casey Pearce sits down with Dr. Kinsey Cornick, an osteopathic physician and Chair of the Department of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM) at NYITCOM, to break down how hands-on manual therapy alters patient outcomes.

We get into the foundational philosophy that separates osteopathic medicine from standard allopathic tracks. Dr. Cornick walks us through the 19th-century history of Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, details the 200 extra-curricular hours of tactile training required for DO students, and outlines the 10 technique styles used to diagnose and treat "somatic dysfunctions." The core breakthrough of this approach lies in the reciprocal relationship between structure and function, demonstrating that manually adjusting the physical anatomy directly restores the body's natural capacity for self-regulation and lymphatic drainage.

The reality of practicing this discipline is that it requires rigorous physical labor, precise diagnostic palpation, and a constant battle against deep-seated public confusion regarding how DOs differ from chiropractors. Viewers will walk away with a grounded framework for evaluating full-scope medical care and a clearer understanding of how manual manipulation addresses complex issues ranging from infant constipation to chronic pregnancy migraines.

If you care about comprehensive medical education, structural wellness, and proactive patient care, you’ll get a lot from this conversation. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and share this episode with anyone looking to understand the true scope of modern medicine. What is the biggest misconception you have encountered regarding DOs versus MDs? Let us know in the comments below.

@arkansasstatemedianetwork.com.

0:00 - Introduction to Osteopathic Medicine
4:00 - The Four Tenets of Whole-Body Health
11:33 - DO vs. MD: Defining the Differences
14:51 - Inside the OMM Lab: Hands-On Curriculum
19:35 - OMM vs. Chiropractic Care
23:54 - Treating Constipation, Migraines, and Carpal Tunnel

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Welcome to the More Than a Medical School podcast on the Arkansas State Media Network. I'm Casey Pierce. I'm the Director of External Relations and Marketing for NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine. We're a medical school that operates on the Arkansas State University campus in partnership with a state. And the point of this podcast is to tell you about our medical school, to teach you about osteopathic medicine, and help you learn more about the opportunity that students have to get a medical education right here in Jonesboro and then go serve our communities in our surrounding state and region. Today we're going to be talking specifically about osteopathic medicine and about one of the unique things that differentiates osteopathic physicians from our allopathic counterparts. We're going to take a deep dive into osteopathic manipulative medicine, and we're going to explain what that is and why it's important to the training of physicians. To do that, I'm joined by Dr. Kenzie Cornick. He is an osteopathic physician. He's the chair of our department of osteopathic manipulative medicine. We're going to tell you what that means as we get going. Dr. Cornick, thanks for joining me. Start off, just tell us a little about who you are, where you went to school, and what brought you to Arkansas.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Well, thanks for having me uh on this uh Casey. It's been uh it's been great to be here in Arkansas. I'm actually not from here originally. I'm from North Central Iowa and uh I grew up born and raised there, and I went to medical school, uh, an osteopathic uh medical school at Des Moines University in Des Moines, Iowa. And uh from there, just through my years of training in terms of residency um and then practice and beyond, eventually uh our uh family moved here to Jonesboro. And that was uh in part due to uh our uh uh my wife's family moving down to north central Arkansas. And so when I moved here, I actually didn't have the intention to join the uh uh osteobathic medical school here. It was just to find a f uh position uh in family medicine and uh all the pieces aligned, and that's how I ended up uh at NYIT Com at Arkansas State University.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

So and we got really fortunate in that. So uh let's jump right into it. We're gonna build into talking about one of your areas of expertise, which is osteopathic manipulative medicine or OMM as we'll call it. That's the last time I have to say the whole thing out loud. But before I get there, I think we need to give a strong definition of osteopathic medicine. I'm sure you get asked this all the time when you tell people you're a DO, uh, you get asked to explain that. I get asked at least three or four times a week, you work in an osteopathic school, what's that mean? So, in simplest terms, how do you describe osteopathic medicine uh in your education and background?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Of course. So uh osteopathic medicine or OMM, uh, in terms of what we view as um how we train physicians is OMM is the broader sense of how we train physicians to maybe think differently, to think more proactively, to think about the body uh as a unit, right? So it's not just that a patient um only comes to you with physical ailments, it might be that they have uh emotional concerns, it might be that they're experiencing uh financial concerns in their life, which is then affecting their health in other ways. So um that's the broad overarching principle. And then OMM, OMT in terms of manual treatment, is where I use my hands to treat a patient for various complaints. Now, that could be uh a complaint of pain in whatever body region. It could also be that they're experiencing a limited range of motion or they're trying to recover from a surgery and they haven't quite gained that uh range of motion like they wanted to, or it can be a variety of other things, even something as simple as constipation in a child or or helping to um alleviate an ear infection in a child in addition to um uh antibiotics. And so yeah, that's kind of a broad you know stroke of what uh OMM is and how I generally will start that conversation with a patient who doesn't know.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

So we talk about the tenets of osteopathic medicine. You said philosophy, it's a different osteopathic medicine is a different way to approach uh and I always try to point out to people that the father of osteopathic medicine, Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, A.T. Still, he was an MD. He was an allopathic physician, and he just kind of had some ideas, some philosophies of a better way to do things. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah. So uh Andrew Taylor Still, AT Still, he uh lived during the uh latter half of the uh 19th century in the 18 uh 70s was when he uh discovered or or kind of identified and established osteopathic medicine as um a new form of medicine. And you're right, he was an MD, but we have to go back and back then, um becoming an MD or becoming a physician back then was uh in the form of an apprenticeship. And so his father before him was actually a physician, and so he, as he became an adult, uh apprenticed under his father. And and then uh back then it was just simply a matter of dad taking A.T. still down to the courthouse and and uh his father giving a statement that I have trained my son in uh or this person in the arts of uh becoming a physician, and that is your degree in essence at that time. And so that was a different time, different era, right? And so, but uh he went on to um you know be involved as a physician and surgeon during um the Civil War. And and then after that, he um, you know, continued to practice. And a lot of his practice was obstetrics, actually helping to deliver babies. Um, and so uh after you know the Civil War and all of the surgeries that came with that, um, he continued to practice. And then at some point um he had lost three children um or three adopted children um from uh cases of meningitis. Um there was an epidemic of at meningitis back then, and he kind of just became very disillusioned with the treatments at the time. So again, Civil War era, we're talking about you know, amputations for facic wounds um that would become infected because antibiotics didn't exist back then. Um, it was bloodletting, it was treating people with mercury, right? Uh so it was a very, very different time in medicine as a whole, and he just really became disillusioned by it and felt there had to be a better way to care for a person. There had to be a better way to help people come back to health. And so um that's where he started to think differently. He really was a radical thinker. And um, I I think even now we take new insights into what he meant. Um he was a prolific writer, he wrote several books, um, including, you know, his own autobiography. And it was something where you see just different ways to interpret all of those different um thoughts and and ideas that he had even now.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Yeah, and you know, maybe not as extreme, but we get when we talk about health. I mean, there's a lot of you know, the social media influencer and all that world, there are a lot of conversations today that are going on about are are we sure that the these traditional methods are the best way to do things? And I think the idea of osteopathic medicine, a a focus on wellness, diet, exercise, mental health, emotional health, those are all things that are pretty popular. And when when we explain that to people, it's like that sounds like a really good thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Yeah, and and that's really where it seems like we've been almost playing this long game as osteopathic physicians, where we've been talking about this for, you know, almost 150 years at this point. Um, and yet just now we're starting to see the you know, the general public turn and see the the power in some of these things. Um, and that's really been something that, again, Andrew Taylor still has been preaching and and and trying to practice and teach others to practice since, you know, again, back into the late 1800s.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

So I want to go back to that philosophy idea. Uh, we hear about the tenets of osteopathic medicine. That's kind of the if uh he if Dr. Still had to write uh four bullet points about what he saw differently, how he was going to try to move medicine forward, do things differently. Uh, we've got those lined out. Can you share those with us and kind of how they they play into how an osteopathic physician is trained? Of course, of course.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

So um the four tenets um were derived from uh Andrew Taylor Still's teachings, and we identified them as the first being the body is a unit, and that a person is a unit of body, mind, and spirit. Another way to say this is that we need to look at the person as a whole person, not just that the person has a, you know, their liver and their gallbladder, and we need to treat the issue that is going on in their liver or gallbladder. No, it's seeing the person as a whole and taking care of that whole person. The second tenet is where the body is capable of self-regulation, self-healing, um, and self-maintenance. And that's really just to acknowledge that our body is capable of doing a lot of things on its own. And, you know, we see that just in the simplest form of what happens when you have a you know a scrape on your knee, or what happens after surgery, or the only reason why we can do surgery is because our body's capable of healing. So that's the second tenet. The third tenet is that structure and function are reciprocally interrelated. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Um if something's not um built right, if if you've if you've got a board falling down on your fence, your whole fence is gonna can fall apart, or you're it creates uh I g I guess I don't know if that's a great analogy, but you know where I'm going there.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

I've I've got a pretty good one, and it's a it's funny and it's really obvious, but I think it illustrates the point. And uh an example of this is let's say that um I'm trying to um you know do some significant yard work around my yard and and I need to go to a a um a you know a local nursery or or a store to get uh a lot of mulch. We're talking, you know, not just a bag of mulch, but you know, a whole load of mulch, right? And and I show up and I've got a Toyota Prius. Well, the structure of a Toyota Prius doesn't really fit the function of being able to haul that much mulch back to my house. Yeah. That's gonna be 20, 30 trips at minimum. If I can even, how do I get the mulch in the tr in the Prius, right? So a structure that would be more appropriate for that function would be a truck with an open bed, right? So it's an obvious example and it's it's silly, and I always chuckle at it, but it does illustrate the point that our body has various structures, and those structures formed in a purpose to serve some function, right? Every bone in our body um developed in a way that serves some function. Um, a lot of our bones uh as we grow during childhood, change in terms of where muscles are attached. So they become more strong and prominent in certain areas where muscles are attaching. And that's because that part of the bone was always meant to serve the function of being the site for muscle attachment, right? And so it's also looking at, well, if the structure is impaired, right? So, like you mentioned, if a board falls uh on a on a uh fence or a tree falls on a fence, right? It disrupts the structure of the fence. Well, what if something is impeding the flow of blood? That's another thing where the structure of the body is now impeding the flow, which is the function. So we now have less blood flow to an area. That area can't receive the nutrients, the oxygen, the other uh aspects that it needs to be a healthy tissue, right? Yeah. So um, that's the third tenet, uh, structure and function. And then the fourth tenet is that rational treatment is based on the principles of self-regulation, of the body is a unit, the person is a unit of body, mind, and spirit, and the idea of structure and function. So, in essence, that we base the rational treatment on a for a patient on those three above tenets that we just described.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

One thing that I always try to point out in these discussions is there are a lot of similarities between an osteopathic and an allopathic physician, a DO and an MD. There are significant um similarities, but there are some distinct differences. And, you know, one of the things, again, that I try to point out is DOs do prescribe medicine, uh, they do perform surgery if they're trained appropriate, they can be trained appropriately to do that. Um, but they're also trained with that mindset, like you were talking about, that those are not the first places to always go. Let's look at a step back, look at a big picture and see if there's a another way to do this. Is that yeah?

SPEAKER_00 12:12

And and that's where um I gave an example earlier about, you know, doing OMT or OM OMM uh as a way to augment a child's ear infection treatment, right? Um, if I have a child who has an ear infection, I'm still going to prescribe them an antibiotic because that's the appropriate intervention that they need. But I also am going to maybe perform again a hands-on treatment that helps to influence the lymphatic drainage or the drainage of that fluid in that middle ear. So again, it's something that we do both. It's not an exclusive, we only do this or we only do that. And um that's where I some of my best friends from uh from my medical school uh are now a vascular surgeon and an uh Obi-Guyne. Uh, and that's where you know they both come into it where yes, they are surgeons and and they are going to perform uh, you know, surgeons just like an MD would. Um, but they also might approach a patient in that initial, you know, uh consult differently. They might think differently about, well, is surgery really the best thing for this person, or do they need to address some other things before we do surgery? Um, so that's kind of the way I talk about it with patients. And and just to remind them that again, in our country, we we have the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities as any other MD or allopathic physician. And so we are still in the hospitals, we are in the clinics, we are in ERs. Um, and not every DO, unfortunately, does hands-on treatment. Um, that's something that we're hoping to change, of course, uh, because it is something that it's such a wonderful uh uh benefit to our patients. But it's also something where, you know, like my friends who are are surgeons, you know, their skills lie elsewhere, right? And so we have to acknowledge that some um some DOs also just have incredible skills that um we need to utilize them and let them thrive in in whatever world they find themselves in. And um, but again, we'll continue to talk about the hands-on aspect of this too.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Yeah, and that's why we wanted to specifically help our future students, our perspective students, understand the distinctions, the distinctions between osteopathic and allopathic medicine specifically. But OMM is a big part of that, uh, especially from the curriculum standpoint. Curricularly, uh is that is that a word? I'll make it sound, I'll say it confidently so it sounds like it. But from a curriculum standpoint, the only thing that is different between the what our students have to study is the practice of OMM. It's about 200 extra hours in their education. I know you hit on it briefly, but explain a little bit more how it's the hands-on treatment, how you use your hands to treat and diagnose. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

And you're right, it is really the primary difference when you look at a curriculum on paper, right? Um, there's some other subtle differences in maybe how we present some lectures that you might have an asthma lecture that's given in an MD or allopathic school. Um, and it might cover a lot of the same things that we cover in an asthma lecture at our school, but there might also be some additional components to that asthma lecture that are more specific to us. But again, we cover the same topics, right? We need to teach medicine that as we know it in terms of all the various patient conditions and diseases. Um, but then the biggest difference, like you said, is 200 hours. And that's not a small number for those listening. It is a really significant investment in time because it is hands-on. You have to experience it. It's not something that you can just hit two times speed and watch a video about. Um, and so in our labs, you know, we we have uh tables that uh each student is paired up with another student and you're performing hands-on diagnosis and treatment. And the the simplest way I describe this as patients is I'm going to use my hands. I'm gonna palpate and feel things with my hands on your body in terms of whether it's the shoulder and feeling the motion of the shoulder joint, or whether it's feeling the tension in the muscles, or whether I find that I can't get the same um mobility of a joint. Um, and so those are uh some of the basics of how we describe this. And as we teach this, we kind of move region to region in terms of we start in the thoracic spine and we go through how to diagnose the thoracic spine with uh what we call somatic dysfunctions. And somatic dysfunction just means body dysfunction. And what that means is that there is something related to the structure of the thoracic spine that it has been altered that now is creating dysfunction somewhere. That can be something as simple as a slight twist to the spine that isn't perfectly neutral. Um, it could be that one side of the muscles on uh the spine that help to allow us to sit up or to uh slouch down is now really, you know, dysfunctional, intense, and hypertonic on one side, but not on the other. Um, so those are some examples of as we start that thoracic spine unit, and then we move into how do we treat that. So I always tell patients we have about 10 different styles or techniques that we teach. And in the first year, we'll um generally cover about three of those technique styles. And then in the second year is when we really expand and fill out the rest of those technique styles in various ways. But um the first year is a very strong core of what you need to know um as you go uh go on to your next years. But um, second year is really where we get to apply it and bring in the nuance of, well, maybe this treatment style isn't the right uh right one for this patient. But here, let's let's talk about this style. And that's where some of these techniques might seem very very familiar or or that you might observe and think, well, I maybe I've seen that before. And and maybe you have, because we don't have an exclusive, you know, rights on on manual treatment or hands-on treatment. We just have our 10 styles of treatments, and some of them can have some similarities with other hands-on treatments that you might see by a physical therapist, for example. Um, but it's something where uh again, we have those 10 styles, and some of them are very gentle and and very um, you know, I always say that sometimes patients will, you know, when I tell them that they're done, they'll ask, wait, what did you exactly do? Because it really wasn't very noticeable to them. Um, so sometimes it can be that subtle and that gentle, and other times it might be that we are really positioning the patient in a in a lot more motion and having them actually do something to help us.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

So you mentioned other touch therapy. I want to I want to go there. You didn't say chiropractor, but I think when people hear OMM and adjustment and moving and, you know, again, touch therapy, that's one of the places that they go to. And I believe Dr. Still had some close relationships with chiropractors. Can you kind of flesh that out for us?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Yeah. And so, yeah, like like I said, it's something where they also perform manual treatment, they perform hands-on treatment, they have their own style. And and actually the the founder uh of the chiropractic uh uh thought process or treatment style was actually in Andrew Taylor Still's first class of of uh osteopathy. And so it's it's really where there was some connection there. But um, that student and ended up leaving and did not complete his his um training with AT still, and he moved on and and had some of his own ideas that he wanted to flesh out and develop, and that's what he did. And so that's where we kind of have a divergence there, and that's why there's some similarities, but again, that they're distinct, they're still different. Um, but again, they might seem familiar for somebody in the general public because there is just the differences are subtle sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Well, and one thing, again, I always try to point out in this conversation when I have it with people, and I'm not at the level of expert that someone who's gone through the education, but chiropractors are not medical doctors, so their scope is a lot more limited than what an osteopathic physician does. And can you know, an osteopathic physician can perform that touch therapy, but also has that full scope of prescribing uh full panel of medicine and all those things. Is that yeah?

SPEAKER_00 20:02

I I the way I describe that to patients sometimes is we operate from a medical diagnosis, right? As DOs, that is one of the primary things that really differentiates us from anybody else who does hands-on therapy is I may see a patient and I'm gonna hear their complaint, I'm gonna take their history, I'm gonna do a physical exam. And let's say it's a a patient with low back pain that radiates down their leg. And let's say we do that workup, I do my exam, and I'm concerned that they have what we would refer to as lumbar ridiculopathy, or that there's a potential nerve impingement that is happening as the spine, a spinal nerve exits that vertebral body of the spine. And and that means that, okay, well, what do we do about that, right? I'm gonna come to my diagnosis, I'm gonna make a plan of treatment. And that plan of treatment is going to include potentially imaging. Um, it may include physical therapy, referring to physical therapy for various, you know, rehab type uh programs. It also may include hands-on therapy where I recommend OMM or OMT. And and when I describe that to patients, it's my manual treatment may not change in terms of directly having an impact on that nerve root, you know, but I can't reach into you and change that nerve route, right? But I can change the the structures around that spine. I can change the tension maybe in the muscles around that spine. I can help to maybe alleviate some of that pressure or help to strengthen our body's resiliency to help, you know, bring about better healing in the again, maybe through PT or whether they do need to consider something like a therapeutic injection. So again, I prescribed OMT for the diagnosis of lumbar ridiculopathy. That's where I came from. Whereas other forms of manual treatment are generally based on a complaint. My back hurts, my neck hurts, and and perform some treatment on it from there.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Yeah. And that goes back to the whole osteopathy physicians look at a big picture, and there's a lot of pieces to that puzzle. Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Exactly. Yep. And that's where again, it's just that's where we operate from. We we come into it as we are still physicians, we still come to a diagnosis, we still teach again all the same, you know, styles of how do I ask questions? How do I get the history from the patient? How do I perform exam in terms of listening to the heart and lungs, to doing uh other tests and palpation of the abdomen? Um, so all of those things still come into play, but it just I have the ability to also perform that hands-on manual treatment to help a patient in whatever capacity I feel is appropriate.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

One of the simple explanations I was given early on when I was new to osteopathic medicine, just when I came to work here, was uh I was told that a lot of patients that have carpal tunnel pain or receive OMT for that. That that's a pretty easy way for me to understand if you're able to manipulate that joint, relieve the pressure. Is that one that you go to kind of explain?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yeah, so that's a really common condition is carpal tunnel syndrome, right? And so that's a a low-hanging fruit, right? Yeah, where you know a lot of people know what that is, and a lot of people know what that feels like. Well, that's something where, sure, there's you know, various techniques that can be used or treatments that can be used to treat that, right? There can be bracing or splinting at night um to help relieve some of that improper positioning of the wrist. Um, it could progress all the way to surgery, right? The thing is, though, is that sometimes surgery isn't a permanent fix, right? And so really it's a space problem, it's an anatomy problem, is what carpal tunnel syndrome usually comes down to. And and so if there's changes to the structure again, like we mentioned, it maybe impeding the blood flow, right? Well, how what if we impede the the natural flow of the nerve impulses? And that's where we can get those pain or nerve tingling sensations. And so, can I perform treatment at the wrist or or even higher up to help to relieve relieve or alleviate that uh type of dysfunction and then restore that patient to normal function?

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Yeah, awesome. Well, what are some other things? Uh you mentioned constipation that you're able to manipulate to to provide that touch therapy to get your bowels flowing. That's often what are some other kind of common, you said low-hanging fruit, like yeah, easy for dummies like me to understand how that's applied.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

So um constipation is a a a great example because it's something that's applicable in kids, but also something that's applicable even in older adults. And so, even something as simple as a patient that's admitted to the hospital, right? And let's say they have a pneumonia, okay, um, but they're not moving, they're they're in a hospital bed, they're not getting up and walking as much because they're so ill. Well, our gut relies on our own bodily movements to help move stool around, right? And so if we're not moving things, then how do we help facilitate that? And that's where just doing some um, you know, attractioning of the colon uh to help move the stool along is one way to help alleviate that uh in somebody who's maybe bedraiding or in a hospital bed. But it can also be used in a you know, in an infant where we don't really have medications other than, you know, ounce of fruit juice, a prune juice, things like that, um, which again works great for a lot of a lot of liquidos, but uh it's something where sometimes that's not enough. And so even just being able to palpate and help their developing gut kind of do better at moving stool around, especially uh in the that six-month range when they start to get introduced to new foods and their gut's really trying to sort out. Well, that's a great way to be able to help uh uh kids get you know relief from that, you know, pressure and and that uh you know painful type of uh of bowel movement.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

So is there any other kind of commonality things we think of all the time? Well, uh uh headaches. Um, we have a faculty member who has received some NIH funding to study OMM treatment for migraines.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

That's a pretty common absolutely headaches, migraines are very, very common uh conditions. Um, it's something where uh we can perform treatments not only on the head, but also on the neck, which is uh really a primary source of a lot of uh tension type headaches, but even we're finding out more and more just how much tension in the neck and shoulder and the upper back region can contribute to migraine onset or migraine triggers, right? And so that's where if we find somatic dysfunction in in those regions, and then we can help facilitate that, it can serve not only as a treatment for headaches and migraines, but can also be done on a preventative basis as well. So that's where, you know, I'm I'm even seeing uh uh a young female who's uh currently pregnant and she had been on a medication for migraines, which is not uh recommended during pregnancy. And really her migraines are pretty well under control, but that's where being pregnant, she's now been having more and haven't haven't been able to use the medications that she normally would. Well, she's come to me and she's come on a fairly consistent basis where she doesn't always wait until things get bad again in terms of the migraines becoming more frequent. She really gets a lot of relief from me just treating the neck, shoulders, and upper back. Um, and that kind of gets her for um, I want to say the last time I saw her was maybe two, three months ago now. And so we're almost to the end of our pregnancy at this point, but she'll come back and and be better than what she was the last time. But it's just something we're having that little bit of a touch point and check-in and being able to address that can help prevent migraines for her for another, you know, two to three months and get through the rest of her pregnancy.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

From an education standpoint, what can our future students expect? And I know you got into it a little bit about you teach certain techniques, but how do you kind of introduce them to the OMM lab when they get there?

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Yeah. So um the cool, the coolest part about the OMM lab is from day one, we are doing patient care, right? We are teaching you how to care for patients from day one in the OMM lab, which is different than a lot of your other courses, right? Um, a lot of your other courses, you don't really get into some of the treatments until later on, maybe that first semester. Um, but that's where from day one, we're teaching you how to interact with patients, how to help patients. Um, and it's just this great uh, you know, kind of learning curve that you see where the the ability to palpate, you know, and the and the sense of palpation that the students will develop over time and how much better it gets over the first few months. Um, but really it's something where if you come into it with just an open mind and understanding that there is a path that we we know where you will you'll travel through. And so trust that, you know, when we uh you know ask you to practice these things in a certain way, it's because we want to develop those skills. And and you'll look back just like most of us and and you know, kind of laugh at how you know, maybe uh inexperienced or or almost, you know, uh kind of feebly you tried the first few weeks and and just how much better it got within just even a few months. And so really just having that open mind and and really being eager to learn because we're not only gonna teach you OMM, we're also gonna talk about the anatomy of the body because that's one of the biggest principles that drive again the structure and function. So um it's really a great lab that really puts a lot of pieces together. And um, like I said, really from day one, it's it we're teaching you how to be a physician, an osteopathic physician.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Our our OMM lab, there's a lot of skeletal models uh all over the the building. So I kind of plays into it's a build on that anatomy. You're constantly learning this is where that is, this is what that is, this is how it works.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Yeah, exactly. And so that's where, yes, full skeletons, but we also have lots of other various anatomy models um to help maybe illustrate the motions of a joint or or where the attachments of certain muscles or ligaments are. Um and that and that's where we use models when we need to, but we also just demonstrate techniques, right? So I'm gonna show you how to do this uh myself. I'm gonna perform a diagnosis. I'm gonna perform the treatment on one of uh the students and and demonstrate it in front of you. And we have cameras uh of various angles so that we can give you different perspectives where we have multiple camera angles all at the same time. So you can see, you know, oh, I see how that, you know, compares to where I am standing. Okay, that makes sense. And then we have the ability to throw on multiple TVs, we can throw up anatomy pictures to help maybe uh uh elicit, you know, this is what you're feeling under your hands as you're moving this patient in that position.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Is there any common misconceptions about OMM? Or I guess probably the biggest inhibitor is you know, we're the first DO school in Arkansas. We've had osteopathic physicians practicing in Arkansas for a hundred years, but I mean, in in the mass quantities that they've seen in the last 10 years, now we have two DO schools in Arkansas. I think some of the concepts of osteopathic medicine, the principles of OMM are new to a lot of people who live around here. So is education maybe that biggest kind of um hurdle, you think?

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Yeah, I I think really it's helping just to uh give people that lens of why things might be a little different coming from a DO versus an MD. Um, and sometimes that is more uh more distinct when we're talking about the hands-on treatment in OMM, just because they may have in their head what that looks like in in some sense, whether that's a chiropractor or a physical therapist or something, but it also might be that they just well, what is what does DO even stand for, right? Um and so sometimes they're pretty easy barriers to break down. And uh a lot of patients, even if I'm meeting them for the first time and and we're talking about how I can help them, it's something we're just walking them through it. And it's something where I I probably have these conversations about, well, here's what I'm going to try to accomplish by doing this technique for you. Um, here's how I'm gonna use my hands or place my hands, and and this is what I need you to do to help me. Um, it's something where a lot of patients just walking them through those basics is something that really helps them to connect and understand and really just have a better sense of why they feel some of the things that they do. And that's really one of the the great benefits of of you know helping patients is sometimes I don't need a MRI or or a lab test to help a patient understand why they're feeling a certain way. Sometimes it's just helping them understand, again, their own body, the structure of their body, how it's supposed to function. And even just teaching them about that is something that really is sometimes very life-altering and life-changing for them.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Well, Dr. Cornick, we certainly appreciate your insight, your perspective. This has been really informative. And uh, we hope you've enjoyed listening to the More Than a Medical School podcast. And we tried to help you to understand a little bit more about osteopathic medicine and what a great way it is to serve patients and to teach future physicians. So you can learn more about our medical school by visiting us online at nyit.edu slash Arkansas. Our social media channels are at NYITCOM AR for NYIT COM Arkansas. We hope you've enjoyed our conversation. We look forward to meeting with you the next time. Thanks so much.