Tag: lifechanging

  • Your Foundation for a Life-Changing Healthcare Career Starts Here

    Your Foundation for a Life-Changing Healthcare Career Starts Here

    In a healthcare landscape facing critical workforce shortages, one medical specialty offers something extraordinary: the ability to transform lives instantly while building a sustainable, fulfilling career. Welcome to podiatric medicine — where clinical excellence meets meaningful patient relationships, and where your impact is both immediate and lasting.

    At Kent State University College of Podiatric Medicine — founded in 1916 and one of the nation’s oldest podiatric medical schools — we’ve prepared over 7,000 physicians who don’t just treat conditions: they restore mobility, prevent devastating complications, and give patients their lives back.

    Kent State’s campus is located just outside a medical mecca, offering clinical rotations through world-class hospitals including the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, MetroHealth, and the VA, to name a few. This unmatched network ensures students gain diverse, high-caliber experiences. Our reach also expands globally, with opportunities to experience podiatric medicine abroad — including in Arezzo, Italy.

    Dr. Nick Campitelli

    2001 Graduate, Kent State University College of Podiatric Medicine

    Meet Dr. Nick Campitelli, a 2001 graduate practicing in Fairlawn, Ohio. “What’s cool about podiatry is people usually come in with pain, and if you can relieve it instantly, they walk out thrilled because they can get back to their life,” he explained. Dr. Campitelli built a thriving practice while maintaining work-life balance. His innovative social media presence educates millions about foot health while building patient trust. Beyond practice, he mentors Kent State students during surgical externships at world-class facilities.

    Dr. Crystal Holmes

    2002 graduate, Kent State University College of Podiatric Medicine

    Dr. Crystal Holmes, a 2002 graduate, demonstrates podiatric medicine’s academic reach. Now a Clinical Professor at the University of Michigan Medical School and chair of Kent State’s Advisory Board, she specializes in diabetic foot care — preventing the devastating complications she witnessed affecting family members. “At Kent State, I developed my interviewing skills and those soft skills for building relationships, delivering news with respect and calm,” she said.

    Why choose podiatric medicine?

    Choosing podiatric medicine means choosing your specialty from day one. Unlike many other medical paths, you’ll have the flexibility to shape your career — whether through surgical practice, sports medicine, wound care, biomechanics, pediatrics, or diabetic limb preservation. You’ll treat a diverse patient population while enjoying a desirable work-life balance that supports both professional success and personal well-being. This specialty uniquely combines surgical expertise with longitudinal patient care. Podiatric physicians are the only doctors receiving specialized medical and surgical training specifically in lower extremity care.

    You can specialize in sports medicine, diabetic wound care, pediatrics, or surgery — working in private practices, hospitals, or academic settings.

    And the advantages are compelling, including:

    • Competitive salaries averaging over $200,000
    • Flexible scheduling and autonomy in practice style
    • The ability to provide instant relief that changes lives

    The Kent State difference

    Kent State’s dedicated faculty and counseling staff focus exclusively on podiatric medical students — no competing obligations. They offer tutoring at no charge and comprehensive faculty mentorship guiding students through curriculum, clinical experiences, and residency selection. Kent State is also one of just two podiatric medicine programs based at a top-tier, R1 research university.

    Your journey starts with one step. Take it at Kent State.

    Ready to explore this rewarding specialty? Visit Step Into Podiatry to shadow a practicing DPM or contact us at 216-231-3300 or [email protected].

    Read Dr. Campitelli’s and Dr. Holmes’s full stories in the February 2025 issue of Kent State Magazine.

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  • After Hechinger story, Illinois passes law requiring hospitals to connect parents of premature infants with life-changing therapies

    After Hechinger story, Illinois passes law requiring hospitals to connect parents of premature infants with life-changing therapies

    Illinois hospital staff will soon be required by law to refer parents of severely premature infants to services that can help prevent years of intensive and expensive therapy later, when the children are older. The new law follows reporting from The Hechinger Report that exposed how hospitals often fail to connect many eligible parents to these opportunities for their children after they leave neonatal intensive care units.

    Earlier this year, Hechinger contributor Sarah Carr wrote about how, across the country, far too few parents are made aware of the kinds of therapies their babies are entitled to under federal law. Such early intervention services can ultimately reduce the need for these children to require costly special education support as schoolchildren. 

    Carr noted: “Federal law says children with developmental delays, including newborns with significant likelihood of a delay, can get early intervention from birth to age 3. States design their own programs and set their own funding levels, however. They also set some of the criteria for which newborns are automatically eligible, typically relying on qualifying conditions like Down syndrome or cerebral palsy, extreme prematurity or low birthweight. Nationally, far fewer infants and toddlers receive the therapies than should. The stats are particularly bleak for babies under the age of 1: Just 1 percent of these infants get help. Yet an estimated 13 percent of infants and toddlers likely qualify.”

    After the Hechinger Report story was published, Illinois state Rep. Janet Yang Rohr authored legislation to require that hospitals distribute materials informing parents of premature and low birth weight babies about their eligibility for early intervention therapies. The bill also required that hospitals make a nurse or physical therapist available to explain these rights to families.

    Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues. 

    “The problem is that these families often don’t know about these services,” Yang Rohr said last spring, after her chamber passed the bill. “So this bill improves that early intervention process by requiring NICU staff to share information about these services and requires hospital staff to write a referral to these programs for families that are eligible.”

    Illinois Representative Janet Yang Rohr Credit: ILGA

    Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed that bill into law earlier this month. It takes effect in January. 

    Carr also wrote: “The stakes are high for these fragile, rapidly growing babies and their brains. Even a few months of additional therapy can reduce a child’s risk of complications and make it less likely that they will struggle with talking, moving and learning down the road. In Chicago and elsewhere, families, advocates and physicians say a lot of the failures boil down to overstretched hospital and early intervention delivery systems that are not always talking with families very effectively, or with each other hardly at all. ‘They really put the onus of helping your child get better outcomes on you,’ said Jaclyn Vasquez, an early childhood consultant who has had three babies of her own spend time in the NICU.”

    “Early intervention is life-changing for many families, as these programs provide critical services and therapies as children develop,” Illinois state Sen. Ram Villivalam said when the bill was sent to Pritzker. “But, these services can only benefit those they are able to reach, which means uplifting the program and expanding its outreach to those who need it is imperative.”

    Contact editor Nirvi Shah at 212-678-3445, securely on Signal at NirviShah.14 or via email at [email protected].

    This story about premature infants was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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