Interview With the Host with Dr. John M. Ferretti

Transcript

It’s my honor to be here with the founder, president, CEO, Dr. Ferretti. Thank you for taking some time. Pleasure. It is… I wanna just say personally how excited I am about this episode, because I was raised by an osteopath, so I understand the power and the importance- Mm-hmm … of what you are, are doing at this institution and the health system.

So I wanna first off just thank you. Oh. Thank you for, for- You’re welcome … it’s like a service, um, to these people. So just to start off for maybe the audience that does not know, can you just explain what osteopathic medicine is? Well, the osteopathic philosophy, um, is aligned with what the American public wants today.

That’s, uh, comprehensive, preventative, whole-person care. So osteopathic s- doctors look beyond symptoms. They look at factors such as emotional, physical, and social that affect health as well. If, if I’m correct, it’s like you don’t wanna see them back in your office, right? Like, that’s the goal, is to get you back up on your feet.

Right. It’s all about prevention and wellness. Yeah. One of the missions you’ve always had is affordability here at LECOM. Can you speak to that? Well, you know, we have the lowest, uh, tuition of all osteopathic private schools, and the reason we do that is is that, uh, the indebtedness is a barrier to excellent students that would go into the health professions if it wasn’t for the indebtedness of that graduate medical education.

You can’t go into primary care if you owe $400,000 and have to ha- pay that over a lifetime. So we keep tuition down, still provide an excellent education, get the brightest and best students, and our graduates can go into primary care. Yeah. Amen to that, right? I mean, you’re, you’re founder, president, CEO.

You’re a faculty member. You’re teaching classes here. You’re running your own practice, right? Like, how do you do it all? Well, I find out that patient care is the most enjoyable. Mm-hmm. And, uh, if you deal with the young people, whether they’re students or residents, you practice better medicine- Yeah

because they’re, they’re, they stimulate you to be that continuous learner, which is necessary, uh, to be a good physician. Yeah. And physician by definition is healer and teacher. A doctor is just a degree holder. So I’ve always wanted to be thought of as a physician, and that means I have to continue to practice as well as educate.

On behalf of the, the communities that you serve, I just wanna say thank you, um, not only for The College Tour, for opening your doors here at LECOM and allowing us to tell, uh, your story, but the communities you serve and just the country as a whole. I mean, I’m a product of osteopathic medicine, and I know the power of it.

So I just wanna say, uh, we greatly appreciate it. Well, thank you. It’s been a pleasure. Yeah.