Museum Director Jason Haxton shared, “ATSU receives the most military scholarships of any MD or DO school, and we are pleased to support our military students, their families, and colleagues by enrolling in the Blue Star Program — providing free museum access. The Museum of Osteopathic Medicine^SM encourages all to come see the exhibits and read about our unique form of American medicine protected by the military branch services.”

“Blue Star Museums is a collaboration between the arts and military communities,” said NEA Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa. “Our work with Blue Star Families and with more than 1,800 museums ensures that we can reach out to military families and thank them for their service and sacrifice.”

“Blue Star Museums is something that service members and their families look forward to every year, and we are thrilled with the continued growth of the program,” said Blue Star Families CEO Kathy Roth-Douquet. “Through this distinctive collaboration between Blue Star Families, the National Endowment for the Arts, and museums across the United States, service members and their families can connect with our national treasures with this unparalleled opportunity to visit some of the country’s finest museums for free.”

This year, museums in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa are taking part in the initiative, including more than 450 new museums this year. Museums are welcome to join Blue Star Museums throughout the summer. The effort to recruit museums has involved partnerships with the American Association of Museums, Association of Art Museum Directors, Association of Children’s Museums, American Association of State and Local History, and Association of Science-Technology Centers. This year’s Blue Star Museums represent not just fine arts museums, but also science museums, history museums, nature centers, and 75 children’s museums. Among this year’s new participants are the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Calif., Grand Traverse Lighthouse Museum in Northport, Mich., the Totem Heritage Center in Ketchikan, Ala., and the World Museum of Mining in Butte, Mont.

The complete list of participating museums is available at www.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums. The site includes a list of participating museums and a map to help with visit planning.

About Blue Star Museums

Blue Star Museums is a collaboration among the National Endowment for the Arts, Blue Star Families, the Department of Defense, and more than 1,800 museums across America. The program runs from Memorial Day, May 27, 2013, through Labor Day, September 2, 2013. The free admission program is available to any bearer of a Geneva Convention common access card (CAC), a DD Form 1173 ID card, or a DD Form 1173-1 ID card, which includes active duty U.S. military – Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, as well as members of the National Guard and Reserve, U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, NOAA Commissioned Corps and up to five family members. Some special or limited-time museum exhibits may not be included in this free admission program. For questions on particular exhibits or museums, please contact the museum directly.

This is the latest NEA program to bring quality arts programs to the military, veterans, and their families.

The goal of ATSU-MOSDOH is to educate and produce a new generation of community-minded dentists who will help fill widespread oral healthcare workforce gaps in rural and urban communities, specifically within safety-net settings where outreach to underserved patients is achieved. The curriculum includes a focus on public health.

ATSU President Craig M. Phelps, DO, states, “MFH and ATSU have similar missions focused on improving and increasing access to oral healthcare among Missouri’s most vulnerable populations. With the ongoing support provided by MFH and the creation of strong partnerships with Missouri’s community health centers (CHCs), ATSU is confident its new community and public health-focused dental school will successfully fulfill its mission and increase opportunities for inter-professional education among providers statewide.”

“We are proud to partner with ATSU’s Missouri School of Dentistry & Oral Health and its commitment to increasing oral health services to Missourians,” said Robert Hughes, President and CEO of Missouri Foundation for Health. “The School’s dedication to serving the underserved has the potential to have an exceptionally significant impact on dental and oral health services in Missouri.”

Missourians, particularly high-risk populations, continue to struggle in terms of accessing dental care services. The state ranks 41st in the nation relative to adults who visit a dentist annually. In particular, adults aged 35-44 years with less than a high school education experience untreated tooth decay nearly three times that of adults with at least some college education. Access to care is compounded by a lack of dental insurance, geographic and financial barriers, and shortages of dental providers—among other factors. Approximately 70 dentists are retiring each year in the state, while only about 45-50 are starting new dental practices. In essence, Missouri’s overall supply of dentists is declining, while the state’s population and demand for dentists are rising. ATSU’s intent is to respond to this growing gap in oral healthcare.

Christopher G. Halliday, DDS, MPH, serves as the inaugural dean of ATSU-MOSDOH. Dr. Halliday’s vast professional experiences include serving the underserved in areas as remote as Barrow, Alaska, for three years; and serving seven years with American Indian populations in New Mexico and Arizona. In several posts in Washington, D.C., he was a leading advocate for access to dental care and possesses extensive expertise in the fields of oral/public health – a track record that sets a strong example for ATSU-MOSDOH faculty and incoming students.

“ATSU-MOSDOH will utilize a progressive curriculum, which fosters an inter-professional learning environment,” said Dr. Halliday. “We will train dentists to treat individual patients and assure that they are capable of developing oral health promotion and disease prevention programs for entire communities.”

ATSU’s emerging four-year dental curriculum in Missouri will involve two years of pre-clinical, interdisciplinary oral health education on the University’s Kirksville campus in a new 62,000-square-foot, $26 million, state- of-the-art educational facility—which is slated for completion in June 2013. The final two clinical education years will be delivered primarily in cooperation with Grace Hill Health Centers Inc. in St. Louis, Mo., via a new 50,000-square-foot, $23 million clinic and via collaborating CHC partner sites throughout Missouri and beyond. This community-based clinical model sets ATSU’s Missouri dental school apart from others and maximizes the best teaching resources of academic and public health dentists.

“During the third and fourth academic years, dental students will provide much needed care and service to disadvantaged populations by working in community-based clinics,” added Dr. Halliday. “Through community service and scholarly activity, our goal is to raise awareness within our graduates of the significant impact and role oral health has on the overall health status of vulnerable populations, thereby creating a new generation of oral healthcare providers for today’s complex healthcare environment.”

Successful ATSU-MOSDOH graduates will earn the doctor of dental medicine (DMD) degree plus a certificate (or optional master’s degree) in Public Health, the latter in cooperation with ATSU’s online School of Health Management. In addition to the public health emphasis, the curriculum interweaves human systems and dental science courses to enable graduates to understand, analyze, and make decisions about disease, which are in the best interests of their patients, patient families, and communities.

“We are grateful for the continued support provided from MFH during the development of Missouri’s newest dental school,” adds Dr. Phelps. “ATSU-MOSDOH has the potential to transform dental education by addressing
the shortage of dental providers and improving access to oral healthcare.”

Once launched, ATSU-MOSDOH will be one of only two dental schools in Missouri and the only dental school in the Midwest dedicated, at a mission level, to enhancing oral healthcare for the underserved.

Missouri Foundation for Health is an independent philanthropic foundation dedicated to improving the health of people in our region. MFH works as a changemaker, educator and partner to promote community health and increase access to care for the uninsured and underserved.

“Dr. Gevitz will be joining ATSU at a very pivotal time in our history,” President Phelps said in his announcement. “He brings us tremendous depth and strength in all the right areas. He has had a distinguished career in health sciences teaching and scholarship, a long and proven track record of securing and sustaining funding, and years of outstanding academic leadership. Also, in true ATSU fashion, Dr. Gevitz has a deep and abiding commitment to community service.”

Dr. Gevitz served as an educator, researcher and leader for more than thirty years in both private and public institutions. He is currently at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) – College of Osteopathic Medicine where he served as professor of history and sociology of medicine and director of the Academic Medicine Scholars Program.

Prior to his time in New York, Dr. Gevitz served for 12 years as chair of the Department of Social Medicine at Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. He has held various academic administrative positions, including co-director of the undergraduate rehabilitation counseling degree program at the Illinois Institute of Technology and director of the medical humanities program at University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine.

Dr. Gevitz is the author of The DOs:  Osteopathic Medicine in America; and he has extensively published results of his research in peer-reviewed journals focusing on the history and future of osteopathic medicine, and the history of dentistry, pharmacy, and medical ethics. In addition, Dr. Gevitz has been involved in numerous grants, both public and private, including funding for research, health science training programs, and community service projects since 1983.  For the last 15 years, he has served as faculty for the nationally known Health Policy Fellowship and more recently as Associate Director of the Program.

“As the chief academic officer for the University, Dr. Gevitz will continue to strengthen ATSU’s growing academic programs and our unwavering commitment to excellence in all we do,” President Phelps said. “I am abundantly confident that Dr. Gevitz is prepared for this critically important leadership role, and I look forward to working with him in implementing ATSU’s Strategic Plan, including key initiatives of interprofessional education, a center for teaching and learning excellence, and diversity.”

Kirksville, Mo

Prior to his work at DHS, Dr. Polk was the deputy chief medical officer and chief of space medicine for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Johnson Space Center and an assistant professor in the Departments of Preventive Medicine and Emergency Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch. He is the former state emergency medical services medical director for the state of Ohio and former chief of Metro Life Flight in Cleveland, Ohio. He was previously a member of the State Trauma Committee for the state of Ohio.

Dr. Polk has been active in the local, state, and federal emergency services and preparedness planning throughout his career. In addition, he is a member of the American Osteopathic Association’s Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation, a fellow of the American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians, and an associate fellow of the Aerospace Medicine Association.

ATSU-KCOM’s commencement will be held at 10 a.m., May 18, 2013, in Baldwin Hall at Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo.

The ATSU-affiliated AFA Institute offers a full-range of audiology services through traditional and innovative patient care, while also integrating the whole-person approach into treatment.

Patients can expect to receive diagnostic and rehabilitative healthcare, access to a full line of hearing aids and assistive listening devices, as well as other specialized hearing and balance services.

Most major insurance carriers are accepted, and patients of all ages seeking hearing or balance care may qualify.

The AFA Institute is designed to be a center for teaching and learning, which means students at ATSU’s Arizona School of Health Sciences (ATSU-ASHS) seeking their Doctor of Audiology Degree are able to directly assist licensed audiologists in patient care.

“I’m most excited about being able to give our students an outstanding educational experience while also reinforcing the importance of community service,” said Troy Hale, AuD, institute director. “The AFA Institute offers ATSU-ASHS’ students hands-on clinical training, business practice experience, collaborative interdisciplinary learning, research opportunities and community interaction.”

ATSU’s AFA Institute is a nonprofit facility, which means that any revenues generated will go toward worthy endeavors like student scholarships and community service projects.

The AFA Institute mission aligns with ATSU in providing exceptional whole-person patient care and leadership in a comprehensive healthcare education setting. For more information on the AFA Balance & Hearing Institute, visit www.theafainstitute.com.