Alumni Profile: Patrick M. O’Shaughnessy
Current Career: President and Chief Executive Officer, Catholic Health
The recent partnership between the College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM) and Catholic Health to advance patient-centered, community-based healthcare on Long Island is “the perfect marriage,” according to Patrick M. O’Shaughnessy (D.O. ’99). O’Shaughnessy should know: he not only leads Catholic Health, but he is also a graduate of NYITCOM.
“There is a primary care shortage,” says O’Shaughnessy. “This new collaboration will give NYITCOM students much-needed postgraduate primary care training at Catholic Health and enable these young doctors to build their practices and stay in Long Island.” Students can also draw on Catholic Health’s robust facilities, including six hospitals, three skilled nursing facilities, and a home nursing service and hospice.
Putting down roots in Long Island is important to O’Shaughnessy. He studied emergency medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center and worked at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and hospitals in New Jersey before returning to Long Island, where he served as assistant director of emergency medicine for St. Charles and chief medical officer for St. Catherine of Siena. He landed at Catholic Health in 2013. Despite the pressure of his career, O’Shaughnessy even managed to pick up an M.B.A. in business administration and a master’s degree in population health along the way.
O’Shaughnessy is also focused on helping his community beyond Catholic Health. As a member of the Suffolk County Heroin and Prescription Opiate Task Force, he contributed to revamping emergency department protocols for overdose victims and provided recommendations to reduce the overprescribing of opioids at hospitals.
The NYITCOM/Catholic Health partnership fits well into O’Shaughnessy’s vision of the future of healthcare, which he believes relies on how we educate the next generation of health-care providers. “Quality, safety, effective teamwork, change management, and patient-centeredness are all key aspects to medical and nursing education that we will look to support as part of this relationship,” says O’Shaughnessy.
Medical students, says O’Shaughnessy, are the future for how healthcare will be delivered, and the new NYITCOM/Catholic Health program will benefit the students and the community of Long Island and the region. “We’re in the business of healing. We’re here to ease the suffering.” His wise words to medical students are: “Every patient you touch, you have an impact on their lives, their outcomes, on multiple levels.”
More Profiles
Alumnus Joins NYITCOM-Arkansas Faculty
William “Landon” Jackson, (M.S. ’21, D.O. ’21) has returned to his alma mater to serve as an assistant professor in NYITCOM-Arkansas’ Department of Clinical Sciences.
Forward-Thinking Design
Associate Professor of Architecture Clarke Snell, M.Arch., uses technology to link form and performance.
Bringing Literature to Life
Professor of Humanities and New Your Tech’s second Distinguished Professor Jonathan Ezra Goldman dispels myths of the 1920s—and the myths students tell themselves.
An Explorer, Through and Through
Associate Professor of Management Kevin O’Sullivan, D.Sc., teaches skills so students can adapt to change with agility.
A Head Start in Architecture
Architecture student Satish Doobay’s ongoing internship with an alumna’s firm is helping prepare him for a future in the field.
A Passion for Games, a Vision for Business
College of Engineering and Computing Sciences student Cody Ortiz helps his father run a florist shop, an endeavor that inspired him to become an entrepreneur, too.