COA Announces 2020 Award Recipients

(March 6, 2020) The Columbus Osteopathic Association (COA) will present its highest honors at the Annual Meeting & Dinner, March 24  at Smith & Wollensky. Awards are given annually to recognize exemplary accomplishments in personal, scientific, community and professional affairs, especially in service to the osteopathic profession.

WehrumHenry L. Wehrum, DO, a nephrologist, will receive the James F. Sosnowski, DO, Distinguished Service Award and Geraldine N. Urse, DO, will receive the William I. Linder, DO, Advocate Award.

Dr. Wehrum is a past president of the Columbus Osteopathic Association (2003-2004) and is currently vice president of the Ohio Osteopathic Association. He embodies the values of the profession through his leadership and service throughout his 30 years in practice.

Geri Urse DODr. Urse is a long-time champion of the osteopathic profession and has served in various leadership positions within the profession and medical education for the past 20 years. More recently, she created and developed an osteopathic medicine consultation service at Doctors Hospital.

Named for Captain James F. Sosnowski, DO, the Distinguished Service Award, was instituted in 1988 in memory of the only DO killed in action in Vietnam. On February 16, 1968, a mortar shell directly hit a field hospital in Tay Ninh, Vietnam, where Dr. Sosnowski, who trained at Doctors Hospital in Columbus, was in the operating room with his patient, an American soldier. Both were killed instantly. Dr. Sosnowski, who was president of his graduating class at Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine, was two weeks shy of his 28th birthday.

The Advocate Award, established in 1997, is named in memory of William I. Linder, DO, who served as editor of the COA publication called The Advocate. The newsletter allowed him to marry his writing skills to his great love of medicine. Dr. Linder was a great proponent of osteopathic medicine and osteopathic medical education. One of the songs he loved to play on his guitar (he was not only a skilled physician and talented writer, but also a musician) was one he wrote himself about Dr. Andrew Taylor Still.

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