When PCOM was founded in 1899, there was one DO working in Philadelphia. Today, some 55,000 Osteopathic Physicians practice healing around the world. When I graduated from PCOM in 1945, there were about 5 schools teaching our profession. Today, there are 26. Yes, indeed, we have come a long way!
Today I'd like to share with you a little of my personal journey, our collective journey as Osteopaths, and remind us all of the philosophy that binds us together as Osteopathic physicians: Osteopathic practitioners of healing.
Believe it or not, I wanted to be an osteopathic physician since I was seven or eight years old. It all began back in 1929 when my mother ran a beauty shop in our home. I often helped her by shampooing the ladies' hair. I could feel the tightness in their scalps and the way it would relax when I massaged their hair. At some level, I began to understand the power of human touch.
Several years later when I was 13, I sustained a football injury that left me with a torn meniscus and ligament in my knee, an injury that, at the time, could easily have left an Olympic athlete lame. Rather than revert to drugs for treatment, my mother introduced me to Dr. Della Mattson, an osteopathic physician who treated me for six months with manipulative therapy, and I made a complete recovery.
After that, my conviction about my vocation became stronger. I started to do massage treatments on my friends and my brothers when they got injured. I became convinced that I should go to a school where I could learn osteopathy. This was my idea of what a doctor was all about.
At age 13, I became the youngest person ever to apply to PCOM. My dad gave me a $10 check to send in with my application. The College said I was too young, but if I fulfilled the entrance requirements when I was a little older, they would take me. To hold my place, I sent a $10 check to PCOM every year until I was accepted.
Looking back to my student days at PCOM, I remember well the old anatomy lab at 48th Street. It was nothing like the modern facility at the school today. It was a big wooden structure on the top floor of the building.
Dr. Angus Cathie was my instructor and mentor. He was a wonderful person and a brilliant anatomist. He required us to draw every piece of the human body, and then challenged us to develop and articulate healing practices based on the musculoskeletal system. This work, combined with the teachings of Dr. Guy Demming in his book “The Philosophy and Principles of Manipulation,” contributed enormously to my future practice of Osteopathy.
I still remember observing Dr. Cathie’s spectacular dissection of the nervous system. It made the headlines. That was an exciting time for Osteopathy, but a challenging one as well.
When I graduated from PCOM in 1945, we had to fight the whole environment of the medical profession in order to be able to practice osteopathy. I don’t think that younger physicians will ever truly know the difficult road we had to struggle over and carve out. We had to fight to attain staff positions in local hospitals. Even when our patients wanted and needed us there, it was a battle. For many years, we could only treat our patients in hospitals if we visited them as a friend. Personally, it took me 25 years of tough challenges to be recognized as a staff member of Arlington County Hospital in Virginia.
Despite these challenges, I was always very proud to be an osteopathic physician. In 1947, I began my family practice in Arlington with my wife, Laura, an obstetrical nurse and my life partner. Together we performed many house deliveries in nearby farm communities. While that was certainly fulfilling, my dream of becoming an obstetrician was thwarted because we never had an osteopathic hospital in northern Virginia.
In 1948, I had the good fortune to become the first DO to be accepted into the National Veterans Administration in Washington DC. I was appointed to head the Physiatry or Physical Medicine Department.
I was one of the first osteopathic physiatrists on the East Coast after the crisis in California in the early 1960s. At that time, all the DO physiatrists became MDs and we lost all of our osteopathic hospitals in California, as well as our only osteopathic rehabilitation center.
As a result, a group of fellow PCOM alumni joined me in starting the American Osteopathic College of Rehabilitation Medicine on the East Coast. Our group included Dr. Joe Snyder, who was Dr. O.J. Snyder’s son, and Drs. Glen Ulancy and Leon Kwalsky, who along with me served as president.
In 1948, I became a member of the House of Delegates of the American Osteopathic Association, representing the states of Virginia and Maryland, as well as Washington, DC. At that time, only a handful of states had DOs and quite a few of the smaller states, such as Louisiana and Mississippi, hadn’t even legalized the profession.
I was determined to make osteopathy a 50-state profession with full recognition and licensure in every state in the nation. I encouraged my colleagues to join forces and work together toward this goal.
I initiated the formation of the AOA's Federation of Small States to ensure a greater voice for states with few osteopathic physicians. Later during my tenure on the AOA Board of Trustees, I helped to establish the Bureau of Small States Concerns.
It took decades of hard work, but finally in 1973, osteopathy became a 50-state profession when Mississippi became the last state to certify osteopathic physicians. Throughout my career, I have welcomed every opportunity to advocate for our profession and for our wonderful school -- PCOM.
Sixty-five years ago, PCOM put me on the road to success, not just professionally, but also in a more personal way, because PCOM introduced me to my most extraordinary life partner: my wife, Laura Amalfitano Cifala. We met while she was visiting her brother, Dr. Joseph Amalfitano, a fellow PCOM alumnus. He introduced us while I was working in the dissecting lab. I was in scrubs and a mask. Laura was in scrubs and a mask, and we shook hands over a cadaver! It was almost love at first sight! Even though it wasn’t the most romantic way to meet, we were married a year later on Thanksgiving Day, 1945.
Laura has been my partner in every sense of the word. For years, she served as nurse and office manager for my practice. She also shared my deep commitment to the osteopathic profession, and served as president of the Auxiliary to the American Osteopathic Association.
Laura: you are my heart and my soul. Thank you for everything.
Together, Laura and I have six wonderful children, 19 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. I am delighted that many of them are here today. Some of our grandchildren, nieces and nephews have become DOs. In fact, at last count, 18 members of our family are DOs, and many of them graduated from PCOM. Our most recent graduate is my grandson, Edmond Scuillo, III, Class of 1999. He is here today with his two sons, Christian and Matthew, my two great-grandsons.
In many ways, the osteopathic profession is a family affair – not an individual affair. As osteopathic physicians, we have always worked together as a family, supporting one another -- and that is what we must continue to do to maintain our identity and keep our profession strong.
To my fellow physicians, I encourage you to continue to believe in yourself and keep practicing what you have been taught. I remind you that there are no short-cuts in treating patients, that prescribed medicines are always external and foreign to the body, and that many patients may not respond. But a patient will always… always respond to the healing touch of your trained hand.
To our students, I say don’t sell yourself short. Commit yourself to learning osteopathic principles and techniques.
Remember that "every organic disease has a musculoskeletal component built into it, and that our physical, structural examination is our basis for understanding illness." As Dr. Andrew Taylor Still used to say – you can find a superficial area in the body that can be manipulated to wake up the internal organs. It is there! If you keep searching and practicing and paying attention to what you feel the body telling you, you are well on your way to being a good physician.
I am very proud of PCOM and its dedication to training outstanding physicians who adhere to the traditional principles and practice of osteopathy.
In closing, I want to say, once again, how deeply honored I am to receive this prestigious award from an institution that I love and that is so highly respected throughout our profession. And I especially want to thank everyone on the PCOM Alumni Board and in the Alumni Office.
Thank you for sharing this very special occasion with me, and thank you for enriching my life with this honor.
