Look who's a D.O.ctor now!

Well, Lincoln officially graduated from the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine on May 17 and received his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree! Good job on this accomplishment, Lincoln! I'm happy that we've made it through 4 years of medical school. It was 4 very hard and stressful years and sometimes we didn't even see you for weeks, but we learned to go through it and it broght us closer together.

We did it!

Proud parents

Here are some more pics from the graduation weekend. Lincoln's parents, Jacob, Sierra and her husband John came out to see Lincoln graduate.

For those of you who have never heard of Osteopathy, it's truly amazing medicine. Osteopathic medicine is a complete system of medical care. The philosophy is to treat the whole person, not just the symptoms. It emphasizes the interrelationships of structure and function and the appreciation of the body's ability to heal itself. D.O.s are trained to consider the health of the whole person and use their hands to help diagnose and treat patients. In addition to learning all the other standard medical stuff taught in M.D. schools, osteopathic medical students get a couple hundred or so hours of training in hands-on diagnostic musculoskeletal palpation and a general approach and large repertoire of manual therapy techniques, comprehensively called osteopathic manipulative medicine or therapy (OMM or OMT). Some of it resembles chiropractic, physical therapy, and massage, but OMM is really a very broad spectrum of approaches and techniques to help release restrictions in muscles, joints, bones, fascia, etc. to arterial, venous, lymphatic, and nervous flow and general proper function of the body as a whole. Like M.D.s (also known as allopathic physicians), osteopathic physicians are also medical doctors and are fully licensed to prescribe medicine and practice in all specialty areas including surgery. Here's a little more about the Osteopathic profession.

Lincoln is starting his Family Medicine Residency orientation weeks tomorrow. Being done with med school is one thing, going through 3 years of residency is a whole new adventure. It is said that the intern year (first year of residency) is usually the most grueling year of a doctor's training. At least I got a little taste of it while working as a nanny for my dear host family back in 2000. Katrin was just starting her Family Medicine residency and Kiame had just finished a year ago when I came over from Germany as an Au Pair to help them out with their cute kid. I remember her being exhausted quite often, but she always tried to manage to spend quality time with her little family. That helps me to think positive about the next year. I've learned so much from living with my old host family. Thank you Katrin and Kiame!!! It really prepared me for our journey. I am excited to meet the new intern families. There's nothing like being in the same boat and understanding each others trials and supporting each other. And of course it's nice that we have family on Lincoln's side close to Spokane. It's so nice to be out West.

We had planned to move out West right after graduation to make the most out of Lincoln's time off. Don't EVER do that! :) It got a little crazy, but we are really grateful that Linc's family and numerous people from our church ward were able to help us pack the rest of our stuff, load our moving truck and clean up our house.

We never thought we'd fill the whole 26ft. truck, but by the time we were done, the truck was chock full.

We left later than planned on Monday, but were still able to make it to the Holiday Inn with the nice indoor water park in Kearney.

Snow in Wyoming. We couldn't believe it.

FINALLY HOME!!!

The drive from Kirksville to Spokane took over 30 hr. We broke it up into 5 days, visiting many of our dear friends on the way. Thank you so much for taking us in, feeding us and spending time with us! We couldn't be more grateful!!! :)