You can’t put a price tag on a gifted physician, but you can support a future Osteopath to learn what it takes to become one.

With your scholarship donations, students have the opportunity to take courses in a specialty designed to transform their approach to patient care: Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (hands-on treatment and diagnosis).

Residents and medical students will be training with senior physicians — who are known to raise the academic bar — in the advanced courses offered by the non-profit Osteopathic Cranial Academy, as well as other organizations. One of these courses, the 40-hour introductory course is designed to have a life-long impact on a student’s career, with the help of your funding.

A key goal is to refine a student’s sense of touch to the point of being able to diagnose and treat the most subtle abnormalities — which even fail to appear on an imaging procedure (i.e., blockages in fluid, trauma in tissues, compression in bones, etc.).

It is a healthcare specialty with an irrefutable record of excellence.

“Most of the students arrive at courses well-schooled in textbook medicine and data-driven science,” says Dr. Eric Dolgin, DO, President of OCAF. “But they lack the background to realize manipulative medicine can serve as an invaluable form of treatment in their medical careers.” This has led to an unprecedented push for more funding by the OCAF Board.

In most cases, the residents and medical students would not be able to afford the advanced courses, which underscores the necessity for scholarships.

As John Reed, M.D., former Board Member of the Foundation, points out, “We don’t want anyone turned away from a course due to lack of funding.”

Note to friends and family of OCAF: the typical scholarship is one-half of the tuition to partially pay for a course, which is currently $2,295. The cost to attend can be up to $5,000.00 including full course fee, air flight, and hotel.