“Is there a doctor?”

Ken Steier (D.O. ’83) heard the call, but it didn’t register immediately. After all, he was on an airplane, enjoying his flight. Then he heard it again and realized no one was responding. Without further hesitation, he jumped up and headed down the aisle to where a 50-year-old passenger had collapsed.

By the time Ken reached the man, overanxious flight attendants were getting ready to shock him with a defibrillator. The doctor immediately took charge, using other on-flight medical equipment to resuscitate and stabilize the man until the pilots could make an emergency landing.

As the patient—who it turns out had suffered a minor heart attack—was wheeled off the plane, Ken’s fellow passengers stood up and clapped.

For his efforts, the doctor, who also serves as dean of academic affairs at Nassau University Medical Center (NUMC) on Long Island, N.Y, received a $100 voucher from the airline and letter of thanks for the impromptu house call.

While the plane incident stands out in Ken’s mind, it wasn’t the most bizarre case of his career. That honor goes to a mysterious fever he encountered while working in Louisiana. “Nobody knew what was wrong,” he says, recalling a variety of symptoms that didn’t correlate with any infection known to the area.

But Ken didn’t give up, eventually arriving at a diagnosis of Hantavirus—a rodent-borne virus never before found in Louisiana. So unusual was his “discovery” that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were called in to conduct an investigation.

Ken finds it amusing that while Louisiana was the last state to accept the licensure of doctors of osteopathic medicine (D.O.), it took a D.O. to come up with this diagnosis. As if that wasn’t ironic enough, he received a state commendation for his efforts.

In his role as NUMC dean of academic affairs, Ken supervises the medical education of approximately 285 residents in 20 different training programs, as well as 300 medical students from nearby schools, including NYIT’s New York College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYCOM). He is also medical director of the hospital’s pulmonary care unit and a member of the NYCOM Educational Consortium Board of Directors.

Ken says he has witnessed the dramatic evolution of osteopathic medicine over the years, and he is glad to see his alma mater and the doctor of osteopathy degree finally receiving the recognition they deserve. “When I was a student, you could barely get a rotation, but now at NUMC we have D.O. graduates in every area of specialization.” Ken and his wife, Cindy Anne, have three sons, Jacob, Joshua, and Zachary.

—Angela Marshall