Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM) is a form of treatment that uses manual pressure or force to move muscles and joints to treat a wide variety of common ailments. These include headaches, arthritis, stress injuries, sports injuries, and pain in such areas as the lower back, neck, shoulders, knees, and much more. OMM offers a unique addition to the toolbox of osteopathic internists and subspecialists to enhance the care provided to their patients. This special podcast explores the role and value of Osteopathic Medical Treatment (OMT) in Internal medicine.
The Role of Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment (OMT) in Patient Care
Featuring:
Jodie Hermann, DO, MBA, FACOI
Jodie Hermann, DO, MBA, is an osteopathic internist and Osteopathic Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine (ONMM) specialist who is passionate about what she does in any setting. She is currently a hospitalist in Augusta, ME at Maine General Medical Center.
Her initial interest in medicine came at the young age of 3. Then she enjoyed athletics while growing up and at the University of Connecticut where she obtained her Sports Medicine degree and was the 4-year captain and president of the UConn Women’s Ice Hockey Team. Upon graduation she placed her focus on corporate wellness and spent six years at a top program where she provided research and growth in the field of health and wellness. In support of her career, she earned an MBA in international business and management at UConn. During this time, she worked with the sports medicine staff where she became the head trainer for Track and Field. This led to her becoming the head trainer at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics for all track and field athletes.
Upon completion of her MBA, she started her own business in Maine and then in Massachusetts with her partner Susan. Dr. Hermann was unable to stay out of the world of sports medicine and was soon hired by the University of Massachusetts to care for their athletes. Working with great colleagues, she was encouraged to attend medical school.
She attended the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine (UNECOM) where she learned medicine and the art of osteopathy. Dr. Hermann completed her Internal Medicine residency at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA in 2010 and is currently board certified in Internal Medicine. Following completion of her residency, she began her career in medicine at Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast, ME. Her experiences in a community hospital setting and her love for osteopathy led her to UNECOM's ONMM program. In addition to her board certification in internal medicine, she is currently board certified in ONMM.
Following completion of her training in ONMM, Dr. Hermann worked with the Maine Dartmouth Residency Program at the Collaborative Care Center where she became Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine faculty. During this time, she provided support at the Maine General Medical Center hospitalist program where she subsequently took a full-time position.
She was recruited by UNECOM to teach students as a clinical faculty member and ultimately became Chair of the Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine Department.
Dr. Hermann currently works at Maine General Medical Center as a hospitalist and serves the needs of the acute care patient with a team of colleagues she loves.
Transcription:
Maggie McKay (Host): If you've never heard of OMT or osteopathic manipulative treatment, today, we're going to find out what the role of OMT is when it comes to patient care with Dr. Jodie Hermann, osteopathic internist and osteopathic neuromusculoskeletal medicine specialist.
Hello and welcome to the American College of Osteopathic Internists podcast, Docs Off The Clock. Juggling the business of medicine and caring for patients means doctors always seem to be on the clock. Docs Off The Clock features some of today's best voices in healthcare with tips on how to live a better balanced life. Thank you for stopping by today. I'm Maggie McKay. Thank you so much for making the time to be here today, Dr. Hermann. It's great to have you here.
Jodie Hermann, DO: Oh, thanks, Maggie. It's such a pleasure to be here.
Host: All right. Let's start off with what is OMT and what role can it play in internal medicine and its subspecialties?
Jodie Hermann, DO: So in a brief kind of outline, osteopathic manipulative therapy is a skill set that every osteopathic physician learns as they're going through their school, their medical school curriculum. Once that is done, we have multiple techniques we can utilize in order to help the body function at its optimal point. There's different techniques that are applied to a specific person in order to decrease the restrictive tissue in the person and increase the fluid flow so the body can maintain its healthiest and most optimal status and component that it can have.
So, what role can it play in internal medicine and its subspecialties? The great part about OMT is it really just takes your hands and the knowledge, and the fact that we can apply it anywhere. Literally, I've applied it on sports fields, I've applied it in an outpatient setting, I've applied it in the hospital. And it actually results in better outcomes and faster improvement in the person and the patient with whatever disease process that they have. Relative to subspecialties, it certainly depends on which specialty the individual is in, whether it's pulmonology, cardiology, infectious disease. There's different organ systems that the practitioner can utilize and focus on in order to improve the status of that subset.
Host: Does OMT provide additional tools that help separate osteopathic internists and subspecialists from other physicians?
Jodie Hermann, DO: Well, I think overall if you look at what a doctor of osteopathy does versus a medical doctor versus alternate type of practitioners, we're given a schooling, where we are much more in depth relative to anatomy and physiology, and how do we utilize that relative to the body's ability to function and decrease its restrictions. So when we look at a person, it's more as a whole unit, so the body, mind, and spirit. How does that go together with where we're at on any given day, and how can we help improve that from a patient's point of view? So if somebody comes to me with an upper respiratory infection, they haven't been able to get rid of it, whether it's acute or chronic, I can apply some skill sets to help the nasal passages drain, to help the person breathe better in order to get the antibiotics there and get rid of the waste products. So, those are some really easy things that we can do.
And I think the nice part is that you can take it anywhere. For instance, we've had the military inquire relative to what might osteopathic manipulative therapy do for them. And one of the easiest places to apply that is in a flight pilot who needs to continue to have all of their capacities about them, but they need some type of treatment. So, an individual like this is not able to take any type of medications, because that might alter their ability to fly the plane. And so, we're looking at how can we best help that individual at that point in time.
Host: Wow, that's a good example. How can OMT be used to improve patient care? I know you touched on it a little bit. But how can it ultimately improve patient outcomes?
Jodie Hermann, DO: So relative to patient care, a very easy metric that's used within the hospital is a length of stay. So if you have a person with a pneumonia and what's the obvious length of stay, in general, it's a three to five-day window that we're trying to have a person come in, treat them, and then have them improved to the point where they don't need the acute care setting anymore.
If, in fact, you take that patient with pneumonia and then you utilize your skill set with osteopathic manipulation in order to assist that person in improving their ability to breathe, a.k.a clear the infection, not need supplemental oxygen, increase the impact of the antibiotics on that person, decrease the amount of steroids and/or nebulizers we might have to utilize in order to help them breathe. It's a much faster process in relation to the number of days that they stay. In general, we could probably turn a patient around between two and three days instead of three to five. And when an organization or a corporation looks at that, everybody wants the shorter length of stay. Why? Because it's a decreased cost for the impact of the insurance companies and the hospital, and we're able to help more people because now we have more space to bring other people who might need the acute care setting into the fold. Does that make sense?
Host: Yeah, absolutely. How can patients and physicians learn more about OMT and its value in patient care?
Jodie Hermann, DO: So if you have an osteopathic physician, certainly don't be shy. Ask them all about it. That's one of the best, most direct ways to do it. At the American College of Osteopathic Internists, we have a subgroup, which is a task force on osteopathic manipulation. And there's plenty of different ways to gather information relative to how can I find a provider, what kind of techniques might work for me? If you're the provider, it might be where can I upstart my skills? Where can I re-immerse myself into helping my patients in a more fluid manner and be able to really overall affect their mind, body, and spirit again in order to help them improve to the best that they can be in the shortest period of time?
Host: Is there anything else you'd like to share that we didn't touch on?
Jodie Hermann, DO: I would just say I really enjoy it. I really believe in it. A lot of times you feel like you're swimming upstream, so it's not an uncommon feeling to have. I think there's a variety of reasons that that might be, and that may be because there's not as many DOs as MDs, and the fact that if you look to your right and you look to your left, you might be the only one that does this. But don't forget to continue to do it because it actually adds a lot of value to not only yourself, but to the patient population that you treat.
Host: Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us on this important topic. I did not know much about it, so I'm really happy to talk to you today.
Jodie Hermann, DO: Well, it's great. It's so nice to chat with you, Maggie. Come back anytime.
Host: Again, that's Jodie Hermann. Thank you for spending a little time with us today. We look forward to future podcasts where we'll continue to explore issues of importance to you. For additional information, please contact the ACOI directly at 1-800-327-5183 or by visiting our website at acoi.org, www.acoi.org. You can also email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X.
I'm Maggie McKay. Thanks for listening. This is Docs Off The Clock from American College of Osteopathic Internists. Until next time, be well.