NBOME Board member highlights work of the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations
NBOME public Board member Terri Donlin Huesman, MBA, serves as the president/CEO of the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations. In this role, she provides the vision and direction necessary to ensure the Foundations’ continued success. The Foundations strategic grantmaking investments are aligned with osteopathic medicine through the prevention of disease and the promotion of wellness. Ms. Donlin Huesman joined the NBOME Board in 2015 and has served on various Board committees, including Audit, Awards, Nominating, and Compensation. After seven years on the Board, she will step down in December 2022.
Below, she shares information about the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations’ work.
The Osteopathic Heritage Foundations (the Foundations) comprise two private, nonprofit foundations with a mission to improve the health and quality of life in the community through education, research and service consistent with its osteopathic heritage. Based in Columbus, Ohio, the Foundations advance this mission through proactive, strategic funding priorities, including behavioral health and substance use disorder, healthy food access, and funding partnerships in central and southeastern Ohio and, on a national level, advancing osteopathic medicine. Since 1999, the Foundations have approved more than $258 million in funding to advance its mission, of which 75 percent has been directed to the advancement of osteopathic medicine in Ohio and across the nation.
The Foundations’ heritage is rooted in a commitment to perpetuate the principles and practices of osteopathic medicine by prioritizing support for osteopathic medical education and research. Our current portfolio of research-related investments includes ten research endowments at colleges of osteopathic medicine, supporting fourteen research professionals conducting biomedical and translational research leading to advances in patient care.
In addition to translational research, the Foundations established the Costin Institute for Osteopathic Medical Education at Midwestern University – which has graduated more than 270 medical educators. Marie Fleury, DO, MBA, associate vice president for test development at the NBOME, is in the current Costin cohort. In Ohio, the Foundations are proud of the transformational partnership with Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine – now Ohio’s largest public medical school. The Heritage College has leveraged the Foundations investments to become the third highest NIH-funded college of osteopathic medicine in the United States and, this year, Ohio University joined the highest level of research institutions in the country by earning the R1 Classification in the latest Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.
It has been a privilege to serve on the NBOME Board and work alongside so many dedicated individuals focused on protecting the public through the development and deployment of high-quality assessment services for the osteopathic profession and related health care professionals. While my service on the NBOME Board concludes in December, my work at the Foundation and our commitment to osteopathic medicine continues.
To learn more about the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations, visit www.osteopathicheritage.org.
