Center for the Future of the Health Professions April 2025 digest
Posted: April 16, 2025
The Center for the Future of the Health Professions, dedicated to providing policymakers and healthcare stakeholders with comprehensive data for effective planning, presents our fourth op-ed column for 2025.
In this reflective piece, Sharon Obadia, DO, FNAOME, ’97 shares her journey and vision as dean of A.T. Still University’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona (ATSU-SOMA). As an alumnus who joined the faculty in 2010 and became dean in 2022, she discusses the school’s unique mission of training osteopathic physicians to serve in medically underserved communities through partnerships with community health centers nationwide. Dr. Obadia highlights the school’s transition to a new educational model while celebrating ATSU-SOMA’s impressive achievements, including a 99% residency placement rate, recognition for primary care excellence, and the fact that 72% of graduates now practice in medically underserved communities – a testament to the school’s mission-driven approach to medical education.
About Dr. Obadia
Dr. Obadia is dean and an associate professor of internal medicine at ATSU-SOMA. Dr. Obadia previously served as ATSU-SOMA’s associate dean for clinical education and services, in which her primary role was to foster strong and enduring partnerships with its community partner sites throughout the United States. Dr. Obadia has also served as chair of ATSU-SOMA’s clinical science education department and director of faculty development. She is a graduate of ATSU’s Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine and trained at Banner Good Samaritan/Carl T. Hayden Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s Internal Medicine residency program in Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Obadia has been board certified in internal medicine by the American Board of Internal Medicine since 2001 and is a fellow of the National Academy of Osteopathic Medical Educators. From 2010-12, Dr. Obadia completed fellowships in Teaching and Learning and Educational Leadership at the University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine. Dr. Obadia has a long history of caring for patients experiencing homelessness at Maricopa County’s Health Care for the Homeless Clinic and Circle the City, Phoenix’s first post-hospital homeless respite center.
We welcome your feedback and comments on this month’s digest at cfhp@atsu.edu.
Randy Danielsen, PhD, DHL(h), PA-C Emeritus, DFAAPA
Professor & Director
The Center for the Future of the Health Professions
A.T. Still University
Mission in motion: ATSU-SOMA’s evolution in training osteopathic physicians for underserved communities
As a member of A.T. Still University’s Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine’s class of 1997, I am proud to serve as dean of ATSU’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona (ATSU-SOMA) since May 2022. I learned of our story 15 years ago when I joined ATSU-SOMA as a new faculty member in February of 2010. The National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) had requested Chancellor Phelps, President Wendel, and Dr. Gary Cloud create an innovative medical school with a model similar to ATSU’s Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health. NACHC implored ATSU to train osteopathic medical students in community health centers to best model for students service to underserved communities, hoping these students would one day serve as physicians in the communities.
ATSU-SOMA began with its inaugural students on the Mesa, Arizona, campus in 2007. Those students have gone to community health center partner sites throughout the country from Hawaii to Brooklyn, in both urban and rural settings, in their second year of training to classroom activities and weekly clinic days with dedicated role-model physician regional directors of medical education and preceptors.
Throughout these years, as faculty and then associate dean for clinical education, I witnessed firsthand the incredible strengths and some of the challenges of our unique model. Emerging from the pandemic, it was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain clinical rotations and have preceptors available for second-year students’ weekly clinical experiences at many of our sites. And, with difficulty creating new sites, a change was needed.
As we move forward, keeping our mission at the forefront, we are preparing to transition to a 2+2 educational model in the coming academic year. Under this model, our students will remain on the Mesa, Arizona, campus for their second year before joining our strong community partners throughout the country. I am truly moved and marveling at each member of our ATSU-SOMA team with our community partner leadership. Together, we are progressing through this change with positivity, collegiality, and professionalism; problem-solving each step of the way to do everything possible for each student to deliver an excellent and equitable academic and clinical experience. This, our most important goal, drives and inspires us in our work daily.
We have much to be proud of as we advance in our ATSU-SOMA strategic plan:
- The placement rate for the Class of 2024 residency match was 99% and placement in primary care residency programs continued to be higher than the national average. Approximately two-thirds (67%) of our students were placed into primary care (family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics/gynecology) with 89% in needed primary care specialties plus general surgery, psychiatry, and emergency medicine. Our students continue to match into outstanding residency programs.
- Fulfilling our mission, 72% of ATSU-SOMA graduates from 2011-2022 are practicing in HRSA-designated medically underserved communities.
- Hometown Scholars and alumni work in community health center partner sites, such as El Rio Health in Tucson, Arizona.
- In 2024, U.S. News & World Report ranked ATSU-SOMA #6 for graduates practicing in primary care and the 44th most diverse medical school in the nation.
- All second-year students will continue to conduct a required community-oriented primary care research project. These projects have positively impacted community partners throughout the years.
- Research and scholarship highlights: ATSU-SOMA has received two major HRSA-funded grants: A Primary Care Transformation Executive Fellowship and a Primary Care Behavioral Health Integration grant with community health center partner sites. The school also received an American Medical Association ChangeMedEd grant for “Equity, Diversity, and Belonging,” and a recent American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine grant for “Residency Readiness: Creating AI-Nurse Chatbot for Overnight Call.”
- We proudly share faculty, staff, and student publications with our ATSU-SOMA community multiple times per month.
- TayloredExcellence program: ATSU-SOMA’s Student Achievement Success team’s innovative program supports first-generation medicine students, students from historically underrepresented groups, Hometown Scholars, GPS scholars, students impacted by low socioeconomic factors, students from rural communities, and students with disabilities, with the intent of increasing retention, student academic and professional preparedness, and overall success throughout their four years of medical school.
- Students continually refine their skills in our robust osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM) lab and OMM center.
- Case-based inquiry curriculum: Dedicated faculty facilitate student-led small group sessions and provide supplemental workshops throughout the first two years. Robust professional development scholarly activity weeks are included in each block.
- Clinical skills, simulation, rotation, and residency readiness programs are thriving.
- Anatomy curriculum: Radiographic, prosection, and augmented reality Hololens components receive national attention from other colleges of osteopathic medicine and even the American Osteopathic Assocation president!
- The clinical education department, regional directors of medical education, and regional education coordinators continuously secure and oversee clinical rotation operations, with clerkship directors providing a solid third- and fourth-year didactic curriculum.
- Graduate medical education: ATSU-SOMA’s innovative National Family Medicine Residency program with The Wright Center is winding down, while new primary care residency programs have been established at those sites and many of our other partner locations.
- ATSU’s chief partnership officer is providing an inaugural spring virtual residency fair for OMS III and our community partners with residency programs.
- Alumni reach out almost weekly to be involved.
- We have an active and engaged alumni board.
- Our students uplift us daily and give us deep satisfaction and meaning in our work.
I am incredibly proud to be a leader of leaders, from our deans’ team to our department chairs, directors, chairs of our major committees, staff, and faculty, both in Mesa and throughout the country. Each person continuously rises to lead in their area.
In my role as dean, these past few years have been, at times, challenging, yet so rewarding. Each day, we continue making progress toward a bright future – keeping our worthy mission our priority and ensuring our students are well-prepared from year one to serve where they’re needed most, with opportunities for outpatient clinical rotations in as many community health centers as possible. We are dedicated to continually demonstrating to our students the meaning, significance, and value of a career as an osteopathic physician in a community health center. This work and how we are doing it is inspiring to me daily.