Q&A: New AOA president looks to highlight ‘excellence’ of osteopathic medicine

Key takeaways:

• Tereas A. Hubka, DO, will be the second woman and first OB-GYN to serve as the AOA president.
• She underlined the need to embrace the organization’s history, leadership and solidarity in the practice of medicine.

The American Osteopathic Association, or AOA, installed Teresa A. Hubka, DO, FACOOG, FACOG, CS, as its next president.

Hubka is the second women and the first OB-GYN to serve as president in the organization’s history, according to a press release.

“As osteopathic physicians, we bring a unique philosophy to the practice of medicine, treating the whole person rather than just symptoms,” Hubka said in the release. “Our distinctive approach is exactly what is needed in health care today.”

Healio spoke with Hubka to discuss some of her top priorities, how her background and experience will shape her presidency and more.

Healio: What are your goals and priorities during your term?

Hubka: I know that as the AOA president, there is 1 year to do everything. But the profession itself is long lasting. I'd like to do is take the profession from where it is now, continue what our past president has done — because it's been phenomenal — and then move it into the next generation or next century.

My priorities and goals are overarching, and they start with excellence in the profession. The term “excellence” is what I want everyone to buy into or\engender. Of that, I want them to consider three areas of excellence.

One is excellence in our distinction of the practice of osteopathic medicine.

I want to reembrace and understand our heritage, so that we know where to go in the future. We should also take excellence and look at it from every aspect of our profession, which is the undergraduate or medical or osteopathic medical schools. Are we training them appropriately in our skills of osteopathic medicine and techniques? Are we maintaining our practice of the osteopathic principles and practice?

The next area is leadership. I want to work with our MD brethren and together, I think physicians need to lead the house of medicine because there's so much that isn't right, and we need to come from all aspects as physicians.

The third area is osteopathic excellence in our solidarity. The profession is wide and advanced. AOA is the parent organization, but from that we have our state associations, specialty colleges and the various organizations that develop all of our colleges. All these entities — and there's many more — I want to bring them together in solidarity.

I want to communicate [these areas] to the public so that we put osteopathic medicine beyond just the 150 years that we have and pole vault it further into use to the point where patients really understand what we're doing.

Healio: As the first OB/GYN to serve as president of the AOA, how do you think your unique background and experience will play a role in your presidency?

Hubka: Obstetrics and gynecology in general is primary care and specialty care. We're surgeons. We take care of the female patient as a primary physician from all age groups. So therefore, I feel that I take both sides. We always say that osteopathic medicine is primary care, but it's also specialty care. As osteopathic physicians, we all have a place at the table in medicine.

What I think is exciting is that I am a practicing physician. I know what the doctors are coming up against as far as the issues with health care, including physician pay cuts that continue to loom over us, as well as prior authorizations. I know these issues both as a practicing physician as an obstetrician gynecologist.

I also know the patients and how their access to care can be altered or hindered by things that are happening in Washington, D.C., with insurance companies, with consolidations with private equity groups and so forth. I see these issues from the patient perspective and from the physician in practice.

As the AOA President and an active practicing physician, I experience first-hand the complexities of the current health care system and the burdens it places on physicians with continuous Medicare payment cuts and increasing frustrations of the business of medicine with the electronic medical record and prior authorizations. I know my patients' frustrations with restrictions or reduced access to care.  As a practicing and teaching physician in the specialty of OB/GYN, I can use osteopathic manipulative treatment to improve patient outcomes and restore patient and physician satisfaction while reducing C-Sections rates and post operation recovery time.

Healio: Are there any specific challenges that osteopathic medicine is facing right now that you hope to address?

Hubka: I hope to address many things, but one of my initiatives is addressing excellence in our communication and information. We need to be able to collect proper and appropriate data and make sure that we are capturing all of our osteopathic physicians throughout the country and even internationally. They practice primarily in rural areas, underserved areas and areas of need. I'd like to gather that proper data and be able to show that to the government because we do a lot of work and it's oftentimes overlooked.

The second thing I want to do is publicize this and get it out there to the patients and also to those that make decisions in health care so they understand what the osteopathic physician does. I want our student physicians to understand the unique and distinctive practice of osteopathic medicine, so that they want to really embrace what we do.

I’d also like to see our physicians at all levels — whether they're in training as students and resident physicians and fellows, or whether they're out there in practice — start using the skill sets that we were taught and that have been instilled throughout our entire curriculum, which are not only principles and practice, but are actually osteopathic manipulative treatments and techniques.

Healio: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Hubka: I have a very low c-section rate because I take time with the patient and understand what's going on with them. I use different skill sets in how I examine the baby. I perform a c-section when there is an absolute need [for it]. But I try different skill sets, and I try to teach that to residents in training.

I’d like our patients to say, “I was treated by a DO. I had a headache, and instead of just taking Excedrin or getting Botox injections for my migraines, [instead] I now do this, and this is how I treat my headache.” I'd like people to learn about osteopathic medicine more and understand what it is, and I'd love to see the patients write about their DO and see how they've experienced it.

My wish is for all our DOs to appreciate the gifts of our osteopathic training. I would like patients and DO's to share their stories which help the rest of the world to understand osteopathic medicine is the practice of medicine that is needed to make a difference in the healthcare system today just like it was needed 150 years ago.

Reference:

• AOA installs Teresa Hubka, DO, as 128th President. Available at: https://osteopathic.org/2024/07/24/aoa-installs-teresa-hubka-do-as-128th-president/. Published July 24, 2024. Accessed Aug. 9, 2024.