OMM

Every Tuesday afternoon for about 3 hours, my classmates and I attend our Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine course, or OMM. This course, along with a more wholistic philosophy, gives us a set of skills that set osteopathic physicians apart from our allopathic counterparts. The goal of this set of skills is to help the body reach its homeostatic position, and thereby, alleviate symptoms that occur from a 'Somatic Dysfunction,' or an impaired or altered function of a certain part of the body.

This brief description may persuade you to believe that this is a sophisticated skill performed by trained, intellectual professionals, and I'm sure, in about 2 years, this will be true; however, I assure you, at this point, it is anything but that. For the most part, we stand, sit, or lie around half naked (guys in short, gals in sports bra and shorts) feeling quite sheepish and hopelessly unskilled as we try to mimic the instructor as she/he demonstrates each new technique. It's quite a scene: about 20 exam tables lined up, one of us playing doctor, one patient, limbs going this way and that, the instructor and TA's going from table to table.

So far, we have learned to assess various soft tissue and locate important skeletal components, called landmarks. Yesterday's session was a session in which we really got to 'know' our classmates as we found landmarks, namely the landmarks of the pelvis. As much as we all tried to remain as professional and mature as possible, its just a bit embarrassing and ultimately funny to palpate (examine by touch) the symphysis pubis and inferior lateral angles (I'll let the inquiring-mind look those up) of someone with whom you were casually talking about the new Coldplay album 10 minutes before. We all kind of grin and bear the days when our personal space is 'breached' in the name of our medical careers, and I'm very thankful for our teaching assistants (second year students, who are ultimately our 'real' teachers) when they are able to share an experience that they've had in a clinic, where knowing how to do these things that feel so foolish actually relieved a patient. (Just so you know, if you're experiencing lower back pain, it could originate from the posterior pelvis.)

All in all, OMM has been very challenging because it is a skill where the fingers do just as much 'thinking' as the brain. My fingers are currently amatuers, but I truly hope that I become proficient in this skill.