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COM Outlook . Summer-Fall 2014
like pariahs. Looking back, it seemed
like a draconian thing, but it was
borne out of fear and the unknown.”
Dealing with a seemingly unend-
ing barrage of human misery never
seemed to shake Dr. Wallace, who
relies on her deep-rooted spiritual-
ity to contend with life’s thorniest
issues. “My philosophy about being
an osteopathic physician is that you
help people live…you help people
die…and you help them in between,”
she explained. “I’m a very spiritual
person, so death doesn’t bother me.
“I think the gifts I possessed were
the ability to understand, connect
with people, and move them to
another place, be it the afterlife or
healing from rape,” she added. “Most
people are born and die between
2:00 and 3:00 in the morning, so
often there were deaths or rape vic-
tims I had to deal with at that time of
night. I’d come home from a trou-
bling incident like that and wouldn’t
sleep, but then I’d get up, go to
work, visit a baby I had delivered,
and feel renewed by the cycle of life.
I’ve always kept the perspective that
God put me here to do something.”
An Administrator Is
Born…Reluctantly
Happy both personally and profes-
sionally, Dr. Wallace wasn’t looking
to make any major life transitions;
however, the winds of change were
in the air. Because she had become
locally renowned as a skilled practi-
tioner of manipulative medicine, her
osteopathic alma mater began making
impassioned pleas for her to become
chair of its Department of Osteopathic
Principles and Practice after the exist-
ing chair passed away.
With a thriving and fulfilling family
practice taking up most of her time,
Dr. Wallace had no desire to take on a
full-time faculty position at the Kansas
City school, but she did agree to teach
in the OMM lab a few hours each
week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Around the same time, medical
malpractice premiums began skyrock-
eting due to changes in the health
care system, with specialties such as
obstetrics no longer being performed
by general practitioners under the
same malpractice guidelines. As a
solo practitioner, Dr. Wallace knew
it was time to make some difficult
decisions. “My malpractice premiums
began to rise to a level that made it
almost prohibitive for me to continue
to do obstetrics,” she explained. “With
obstetrics fading from my practice, the
HIV and rape-crisis patients predomi-
nated because I was no longer deliver-
ing babies. As a result, the flavor of my
practice changed from the cycle of life
to an overwhelming tone of trauma.”
After months of deliberation, and
with continued overtures from her
alma mater echoing in her ears, Dr.
Wallace finally agreed to become chair
of the OPP department—if the college
accepted her stipulations. “I finally
acquiesced and said, ‘Okay, I will
leave my practice under two condi-
tions. Number one, you will allow me
to bring my practice to the school,
and number two, you will allow me to
continue delivering babies.’”
Wisely, the college accepted her
terms. But after serving as OPP chair
for only six scant months, a sizable
scandal rocked the college to its
core—and transformed Dr. Wallace
from faculty member to top admin-
istrator almost overnight. “At that
time I knew nothing about structured
academics, and I still had my private
practice,” Dr. Wallace recalled. “Then
we found out the president of the
college had bankrupted the medical
school, which resulted in all the clini-
cians being let go with the exception
of the dean and me, because you
need to have an academic dean and
you need to have a chair of the ma-
nipulation department.
“I arrived at a school that had a
robust osteopathic faculty and soon
became one of just two D.O.s left,”
she added. “And since I was the only
other D.O. on staff, I was named dean
of clinical education even though I
had no specific experience. It certainly
was not in any way what I thought I
would be doing with my life.”
Blessed with a gift to adapt swiftly
to change, Dr. Wallace flourished as a
high-level administrator at the Kansas
City school and began making an in-
In 2013, Dr. Wallace received the inaugural
NSU President’s Excellence in Community
Service Award (faculty category).
Dr. Wallace with Jacqueline
A. Travisano, M.B.A., CPA,
NSU executive vice president
and chief operating officer,
and George L. Hanbury II,
Ph.D., NSU president and
chief executive officer.
