Watch Craig Boisvert, D.O., talk about his career and lifetime achievement recognition here.
Two and a half years after retiring as vice president for academic affairs and dean of the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM), Craig Boisvert, D.O., is being recognized for a long 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) is presenting Boisvert with its Lifetime Achievement Award on April 4 at the organization’s annual convention in New Orleans, La. Boisvert is the 27th physician to receive the award.
According to ACOFP, the award honors “outstanding individuals who have demonstrated career-long service to patients, osteopathic family medicine and the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians.”
Boisvert, who continues to assist with WVSOM’s osteopathic principles and practice labs, suture labs and CPR course, said ACOFP’s 28 state societies and the organization’s general membership nominate physicians for the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“I’m honored to accept this award,” he said. “I have known many of the individuals who have received it in the past and it’s an impressive group, so I’m grateful to be included. I was surprised when the state society nominated me, and even more surprised when the president of ACOFP called and told me I’d been selected as this year’s recipient.”
James W. Nemitz, Ph.D., WVSOM’s president, praised Boisvert for his work as an osteopathic physician and educator.
“I have worked with Dr. Boisvert for decades at WVSOM, and he was my personal physician for many years. He is the epitome of an osteopathic family medicine physician and one of the finest physicians I have ever known. He always incorporated osteopathic manipulative treatments during my patient visits as part of his medical care. Dr. Boisvert was also an excellent educator and administrator who influenced a generation of osteopathic students and physicians,” Nemitz said.
Boisvert received a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Vermont and a Doctor of Osteopathy degree from the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Maine. He completed a family medicine residency at Lancaster Osteopathic Hospital in Lancaster, Pa., and later a health policy fellowship through the American Osteopathic Association.
Following his residency, Boisvert, a Vermont native, moved to Des Arc, Ark., where he worked for a federally qualified health center, eventually becoming medical director of four clinics. It was there that he first got involved with ACOFP on a leadership level, being selected as the first president of the Arkansas state society.
He relocated to Lewisburg, W.Va., to join WVSOM in 1988 as an associate professor of family medicine, and within a few years was chair of the section of family practice and president-elect of ACOFP’s West Virginia society. Boisvert recalled visiting West Virginia for the first time with his wife, Patricia.
“I was in Lewisburg interviewing with WVSOM’s acting dean, and my wife went to the grocery store and found that people were just coming up and talking to her,” he said. “I hadn’t taught much, other than working with students during my residency, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to teach. But my wife said, ‘You can do what you want, but I like it here and I’m coming.’”
Boisvert stayed with WVSOM for three and a half decades, becoming the school’s associate dean for predoctoral clinical education in 2013 and vice president for academic affairs and dean in 2014, a post he held until his 2021 retirement. Among his proudest accomplishments at WVSOM, he said, were helping to create physical diagnosis courses that later became the school’s Clinical Skills 1 and Clinical Skills 2 courses; clarifying items in WVSOM’s institutional policy; and helping the school successfully navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.
While working at WVSOM, Boisvert received the Osteopathic Principles and Practice Integration Teaching Award, the President’s Award for Excellence for Outstanding Clinical Sciences Faculty and the Outstanding Employee of the Year Award. Following his retirement, he was named a WVSOM professor emeritus.
Boisvert’s service with ACOFP’s West Virginia society has been equally productive. In addition to a year as the society’s president, he served multi-year terms on its Board of Directors during four different decades. As West Virginia’s delegate at the organization’s national convention for 14 years, he voted on ACOFP’s governing bylaws. He organized continuing medical education courses for the group and assisted with ACOFP-sponsored events at WVSOM.
He has been a fellow of ACOPF since 1992, an honor bestowed on family physicians displaying outstanding service in their careers, participating in civic and community activities, and making contributions through teaching, authorship, research or professional leadership.
In order to attain his fellowship, Boisvert was required to author a paper. He chose a topic based on a case from his own practice, making him one of the first physicians to introduce a new way of treating tularemia, a bacterial disease commonly known as “rabbit fever.”
“I had a patient who had been bit by a possum while taking it out of a trap and developed an infection,” he said. “Until that point, injectable streptomycin had been used to treat tularemia. But there was a shortage of it at the time and I couldn’t get any, so I tried using a fluoroquinolone — a class of antibiotic used to treat other bacterial infections — and it worked. I wrote it up. By the time the paper was accepted, other cases had come out, so I wasn’t the first to write on this, but I was one of the first.”
Other awards Boisvert has received during his career include the West Virginia Immunization Network’s Immunization Advocate Award and the University of New England’s Pioneer of Osteopathic Medicine Award. He has been inducted into the American Osteopathic Association’s Mentor Hall of Fame and West Virginia Executive magazine’s Health Care Hall of Fame.