OU-HCOM student elected national chair of the Council of Osteopathic Student Government Presidents

Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine student Dan Krajcik was elected in April to be national chair of the Council of Osteopathic Student Government Presidents for the coming year. Krajcik, a fourth-year medical student in the DO/MBA dual-degree program, was president of the Heritage College Student Government Association in 2014-15; national parliamentarian of COSGP in 2015-16; and national first vice chair of COSGP in 2016-17.

“From early on in his time at the Heritage College, Dan has shown himself ready to step up and take a leadership role not just in student government, but also on issues of personal wellness among his medical student peers,” said Heritage College Executive Dean Ken Johnson, DO. “He’s been a great ambassador for our college to the other DO schools nationally, and has really helped raise our profile through his work with COSGP. They’re fortunate to have him as their new chair.”

According to Krajcik, as national chair of COSGP, his duties will include overseeing the council’s executive board and representing the nation’s osteopathic medical students to professional organizations such as COSGP’s parent organization, the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine; the AACOM board of deans; the American Osteopathic Association; and AOA’s Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation.

COSGP is the official national representative voting voice of all osteopathic medical students. Its members work to maintain communication, share information, foster student leadership and provide a means for the exchange of ideas among students at colleges of osteopathic medicine.

“People love Dan and people love Dan in COSGP,” said Tyler Cymet, DO, chief of clinical education for AACOM. “He is thoughtful, hardworking, enthusiastic – and just a good person. He listens and he cares. He is clearly someone I would want to represent me.”

Krajcik was one of three students in the first class of the DO/MBA program, which was established in 2015 by the Heritage College and the Ohio University College of Business. The program, which receives financial support from the Osteopathic Heritage Foundation’s transformational $105 million gift, is designed for medical students who want to integrate the study of medicine with training in managerial, financial and technical expertise, which they can then apply to the health care field.

“Dan took a year off to get an MBA,” Dr. Cymet said. “The aspect of business that most interested him was leadership, and he fell in love with it. When Dan gets excited about something, he wants to share it. Dan put together a seminar on leadership for COSGP and made leadership a topic of conversation at every meeting. His enthusiasm and ability to argue on the benefits of good leadership has led to leadership becoming a skill that people want to learn.”

In addition to Krajcik’s elevation to the national chair position, Heritage College, Dublin, student Alyssa Ritchie, 2016-17 Heritage College SGA president prime, has been chosen as the public relations and web representative on the COSGP executive board. Ritchie will soon begin her third year of medical school at the Heritage College.