Throughout his many years as a physician and educator, David Ohmart, MD, has lived a life of service – to his country, to his patients, to his profession, and to those aspiring doctors striving just like he did to become a competent and compassionate physician.
Now, a generous bequest from Dr. Ohmart will help ease the cost of medical school for Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine (WMed) students. The Dr. David Ohmart Endowed Scholarship Fund for Medical Students, which was officially established in October, will benefit fourth-year students at WMed who pursue residency training in Pediatrics after graduation.
“My heart has always been in pediatric care and we need more pediatricians, more primary care physicians,” Dr. Ohmart said. “Pediatric care involves pediatricians and if no one is going into the specialty, that goes against a basic tenet of what I believe is right and just in the world.”
Dr. Ohmart’s work as a pediatrician in Michigan began in 1977 after he completed his active-duty service in the U.S. Army, a stint which included a tour in Vietnam. He opened a practice in Allegan that year and saw patients there until 1991 when he joined the team of physicians at Pediatrics P.C. in Portage.
Dr. Ohmart retired from patient care in 2018 but his journey as an educator has continued. He served as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine and works with students and residents as a clinical teaching assistant in the WMed Simulation Center.
“I’m close with the students through my work in the Simulation Center and I have sponsored several students through the White Coat Sponsorship Program,” Dr. Ohmart said.
Dr. Ohmart said his 50 years of experience with patients taught him that there is a pyramid of care within medicine, the base of which is made up of – and buoyed by – primary care physicians. At the same time, pediatricians and others who pursue residency training in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Pediatrics are often the lowest paid physicians in the field of medicine, he said.
With that in mind, Dr. Ohmart said the establishment of the new scholarship fund at WMed that bears his name is aimed at lessening the substantial cost of medical school for those students who decide to become pediatricians.
“I hope it helps those students not have to spend as many years paying off medical school debt,” Dr. Ohmart said.
Dr. Ohmart said he is hopeful that his philanthropy will leave a legacy not only for those learners, but also for a medical specialty that has brought him much joy and fulfillment throughout his life.
Dr. Ohmart is an alumnus of Miami University and the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. He attended medical school on a scholarship from the U.S. Army and earned his MD degree in 1968.
He departed medical school as an Army captain and completed a one-year internship before he deployed to Vietnam where he served as a medical officer in a combat engineer battalion. During his tour in Vietnam, Dr. Ohmart was part of the Medical Civil Action Program, which helped provide medical care to local villagers during the Vietnam War.
He was also tasked with helping continue a pediatric care program that the Army had established at one of its provincial hospitals. For Dr. Ohmart, it was a heady request because, at the time, he disliked pediatrics as a specialty because he felt he would get bogged down in the mundane memorization of growth and development.
However, he found out quickly that the job he had been given gave him new insights into the medical aspects of pediatrics as he helped take care of acutely ill children in Vietnam who were suffering from a number of different diseases. When he returned from Vietnam, Dr. Ohmart was stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, where his love of pediatrics grew as he spent time and learned from “really smart” physicians who had completed their residency training in the specialty.
He would go on to complete his pediatrics residency at Madigan Army Medical Center in Fort Lewis, Washington, and then spend two years as a pediatrician at an Army hospital in Bangkok, Thailand.
Dr. Ohmart had achieved the rank of major when his active duty in the U.S. Army concluded in 1977. He continued to serve his country in the U.S. Army Reserve and was deployed to Panama in 1990 and then, later that same year, Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm.
He retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in 2001 as a colonel.
Having also retired now from seeing patients, Dr. Ohmart has turned his attention to the next generation of physicians. As a standardized patient in the WMed Simulation Center, he uses his expertise to teach students how to complete thorough physical exams without the help of today’s advanced machines and technology.
“I like teaching and I feel like I have something to contribute,” Dr. Ohmart said.
He also knows – and hopes – that some of those students and the many that will come after them will benefit from his generosity and help bolster the field of medicine and pediatrics.
“There are two ultimate goals,” Dr. Ohmart said. “Medical care for children requires doctors specializing in pediatrics and those doctors need the most help overcoming the debt they face to become physicians. And we’re also talking about our next generation and focusing on and improving the health of that next generation.
“I hope to help those students with the cost of their medical school debt.”