PCOM Student Teaches OMT in Peruvian Amazon
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PCOM Student Teaches OMT in Peruvian Amazon


August 29, 2022

Kendal Schaetzle (DO `23)Many students enter medical school with a rough idea of the specialty they would one day like to pursue. From the start of her medical career, Kendal Schaetzle (DO `23) knew she wanted to pursue a global health track, focusing on family medicine and specializing in sports medicine and underserved populations. As an athlete, Ms. Schaetzle saw firsthand the impact that techniques like osteopathic manipulative therapy (OMT) could have on healing. This focus on OMT led Ms. Schaetzle to MGY Aware, a global organization that focuses on reducing health disparity by working with communities in need, and helping them to provide sustainable resources.

Ms. Schaetzle learned of MGY Aware during an emergency medicine rotation at Einstein Health Network in Philadelphia, PA. She began working with the organization in January 2022 and in July 2022, Ms. Schaetzle traveled to the Peruvian Amazon with the MGY group “MGY Amazonas” to train thirty-four community health workers in medical topics including OMT. Learning from their culture, Ms. Schaetzle worked to maximize the impact this training could have on the health of the community. 

“It was a pleasure to work with these community health workers. They will use the skills they learned with MGY Aware and bring them back to their community, to improve health. Especially in low-resource areas, these techniques are important and impactful,” shared Ms. Schaetzle.

Since returning to the United States, Ms. Schaetzle remains actively involved with MGY Aware, as a member of the organization’s Amazonas Team and osteopathic manipulative medicine executive board. The organization meets regularly to discuss the OMT curriculum and other areas of focus, including fundraising needs, logistics and educational opportunities for the communities they serve. The organization currently has projects in California, New Mexico, Peru and Uganda.

In 2019, Ms. Schaetzle was selected to become an OMM Scholar at PCOM. Her medical school training includes an additional twelve months integrated into her clinical years, treating patients and teaching labs to first and second-year students in the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine program.

Ms. Schaetzle is a native of Erie, Pennsylvania. She graduated from the University of Dayton with a bachelor of science in biology.

PCOM students Kendal Schaetzle (DO `23) with the MGY group “MGY Amazonas”

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