Lorenzo Pence, D.O., a longtime family medicine physician who served as the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine’s (WVSOM) vice president for academic affairs and dean from 2011 to 2014, was recognized for a career of service by a professional medical association representing more than 25,000 osteopathic family physicians, residents and students in the U.S.
The American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians (ACOFP) presented Pence with its Excellence in Advocacy Award at the organization’s annual convention in New Orleans, La. The award recognizes family medicine physicians who have significantly contributed their time and talents to health care policy issues at the local or federal levels on behalf of his or her profession and patients.
Pence said he owed his success to the colleagues, mentors and the osteopathic family he has had during his career.
“I appreciate this recognition of my path and the things I’ve been able to do, but none of us work in a vacuum,” Pence said. “There’s a lot of credit to be shared. I may be the one being recognized, but there were teams of great people with me along the way whom I couldn’t have done it without. I’m a family doctor, and I’m proud to have had that role. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
But Pence’s deep involvement in medical education at a leadership level has taken him far beyond the bounds of a primary care physician.
After earning an osteopathic medical degree from WVSOM in 1985, he completed an internship and family medicine residency at Parkview Hospital in Toledo, Ohio, and established a private practice in Mount Jackson, Va. He returned to Toledo in the 1990s, where he served in various roles, including director of medical education at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center and regional assistant dean at Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine (OUH-COM). He was responsible for third- and fourth-year students from OUH-COM and three other osteopathic medical schools at St. Vincent, at Firelands Hospital in Sandusky, Ohio, and at St. John West Shore Hospital in Westlake, Ohio.
Pence joined WVSOM in 2003 as associate dean for graduate medical education, simultaneously serving as director of medical education and family medicine program director at Greenbrier Valley Medical Center in Ronceverte, W.Va. His experience working with the OUH-COM Statewide Campus system allowed him to become instrumental in helping to develop WVSOM’s Statewide Campus system that is still used to educate the school’s third- and fourth-year students.
“Dr. [Michael] Adelman [WVSOM’s then-vice president for academic affairs and dean] and I, with the help of other WVSOM deans, took the best parts of WVSOM’s already established system and added things we’d learned in Ohio, and that’s how the Statewide Campus started. Ohio’s system, in turn, originated from Michigan State University’s Statewide Campus system. We’ve all shared and borrowed things that worked elsewhere to create a system that’s successful in educating students at WVSOM.”
In 2011, following a year in an interim position, Pence became WVSOM’s vice president for academic affairs and dean, a role he held through 2014. During this time, he helped develop a new “patient presentation” curriculum that would be used at the school for the next decade. He also served as academic officer and chair of Mountain State Osteopathic Postdoctoral Training Institutions.
Pence has advocated for the osteopathic profession through leadership in state and national associations and membership in numerous medical education committees. He served on the AOA Council on Osteopathic Postdoctoral Training Institutions as a board member, vice chair and chair, and as a member of the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine’s (AACOM) board of deans. He was a trustee, vice president and president of West Virginia’s state society of ACOFP, is a trustee of the West Virginia Osteopathic Medical Association and served on the joint education and operations committees responsible for the transition of AOA-accredited residency programs to ACGME-accredited programs during the transition to a single accreditation system.
He is currently senior vice president of osteopathic accreditation for the ACGME, the organization that establishes educational standards to prepare physicians at the residency and fellowship levels to deliver high-quality medical care. He joined the council in 2015 after the start of the transition of U.S. graduate medical education to a single accreditation system encompassing osteopathic physicians (D.O.s) and allopathic physicians (M.D.s).
Pence’s past awards include the ACOFP Distinguished Service Award in 2013, the AOA Guardian of the Profession Award in 2014, the Association for Hospital Medical Education’s John C. Leonard Award in 2022 and AACOM’s Assembly of Osteopathic Graduate Medical Educators Special Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.
Pence said that throughout his lifetime of service, his goal has been to help give patients and physicians more opportunities than were previously available.
“My focus has always been the underserved, whether I was in private practice, group practice or hospital practice or in the roles of an educator, program director, academic officer or at the national level,” he said. “If we can use what we have learned over many years of practice and experience to help the next generation, we can leave the world a better place with more access to care for patients and more educational opportunities for future physicians.”
Matthew Davis, D.O., of WVSOM’s Class of 2012, is the current president of West Virginia’s state society of ACOFP. Davis described Pence as a “beacon of advocacy.”
“The Excellence in Advocacy Award stands as a testament to an unwavering commitment to advancing the principles of osteopathic medicine and championing the kind of care that changes lives,” he said. “Dr. Pence’s journey inspires, his work transforms, his mentoring is profound and his achievement resonates as a bold reminder of the impact one person can make.”