Page 25 - COM Outlook - Winter 2013

25 COM Outlook . Winter 2013
his interests moved to chemistry before his
graduation in 1981.
When he applied to various allopathic
medical schools, his grades were good but
not “stellar,” and he failed to gain accep-
tance into the top institutions. Still, he perse-
vered, applying for postgraduate chemistry
study at the University of Miami as a backup
plan. While he admittedly “didn’t know the
first thing about what an osteopathic physi-
cian was,” personal contacts were about to
alter his career path.
Although he was on the wait list at the
University of Miami, he decided to apply
to Southeastern College of Osteopathic
Medicine (SECOM, which was the precursor
to NSU-COM) and considered pursuing a
career in thoracic surgery. Some background
reading and experience shadowing an
osteopathic physician offered insight to a field
Dr. Sandhouse soon found, in his own words,
“fascinating.” Within a week of his interview,
he was accepted at SECOM and on his way
to becoming an osteopathic physician as a
member of SECOM’s third class.
His was a small class of 80 students in
a college that was rapidly evolving. Initially,
there was no formal chairperson of the De-
partment of Osteopathic Principles and Prac-
tice, so various top professionals visited and
shared theories and practices. For example,
students exchanged ideas with Larry Jones,
the author of Counterstrain, and learned
about muscle energy from Fred Mitchell, who
wrote the book on the muscle-energy tech-
nique. In 1984, Arthur Snyder, D.O., became
chairman of the department. In addition, the
tremendous energy and teaching skills of
Joel Stein, D.O., a newly hired faculty mem-
ber and now a clinical associate professor of
family medicine, increased Dr. Sandhouse’s
interests so much that when Drs. Snyder and
Stein approached him with the idea of taking
part in a new predoctoral OMM fellowship, he
readily accepted.
Dr. Sandhouse, along with 1988 alum-
nus Christopher Mondello, D.O., became
part of the inaugural one-year fellowship.
“From that point on, my ‘What I want to be
when I grow up’ changed from a thoracic
surgeon, to an orthopedic surgeon, to fam-
ily medicine and osteopathic manipulative
treatment,” he explained.
Private Practice Offers
Eye-Opening Insights
After completing his internship at South-
eastern Medical Center and Humana South
Broward in 1989, but prior to joining NSU-
COM as a faculty member in 1993, Dr. Sand-
house opened a practice called the Ameri-
canadian Medical Center in Dania Beach,
Florida. Thanks to contacts and partnerships
with Canadian travel insurance companies in
Quebec and Montreal, coupled with relation-
ships with hoteliers in Dania Beach, the
center offered urgent care to tourists as well
as locals who needed medical attention.
Not surprisingly, the practice proved to
be a major learning experience. “I remem-
ber the first patient I sutured there. It was
a very simple laceration that took me two
hours to do,” explained Dr. Sandhouse.
“However, the last patient I sutured with a
laceration five times more complicated took
me only 40 minutes.”
According to Dr. Sandhouse, his patients
had little idea of their health status. In fact,
some had serious problems. At the height of
the snowbird season, “We had the paramed-
ics at our office about once a week,” he said.
“We didn’t know who was going to walk into
our office—and sometimes we weren’t sure
they were going to walk out.”
Travel insurance covered sudden
illnesses, but snowbirds that stayed for sev-
eral months paid out-of-pocket for periodic
checks of blood pressure or medication
refills. “People came in with anything from
coughs and sniffles to heart attacks and
strokes,” he said.
The dramatic experiences of a Cana-
dian couple remain especially fresh in Dr.
Sandhouse’s memory. A woman called the
Americanadian Medical Center on a Tuesday,
saying her husband was not feeling well. On
the advice of the office manager, the woman
brought her husband, who was over the age
of 80, to the office that Wednesday. When
the gentleman arrived, he was weak, ashen,
Dr.Sandhouse and wife
Robbyn at their wedding.
Dapper D.O.