ISMA President Roberto Darroca, MD; Caitlin Harmon; and ISMA Physician Relations Liaison Katie Kluger at the MU-COM awards ceremony.

ISMA is pleased to recognize Caitlin Harmon, an OMS-4 at Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine (MU-COM), with the 2021 Future Physician Leader Award. ISMA President Roberto Darroca, MD, presented the award to Harmon during MU-COM’s awards ceremony on Wednesday, May 5.

The honor was established in 2017 to recognize a MU-COM graduate who has demonstrated a positive vision for organized medicine and enthusiastically contributes to that vision. Honorees are also selected for their dedication to maximizing the leadership and impact of physicians in their personal, professional and community lives, as well as for demonstrating compassion, respect and a focus on collaboration through advocacy, education, and mentoring.

While in medical school, Harmon was awarded an ISMA Health Policy Fellowship to work with the ISMA Government Relations team as a rising OMS-2. The position is part of the Health Policy Fellowship Initiative, a national organization with the mission of promoting health policy and advocacy, and requires completion of an online curriculum in health economics, health policy, public policy, and government relations.

She held several leadership positions with the ISMA Medical Student Society (MSS), include representing the MSS on the ISMA Board of Trustees as a delegate and alternate delegate, sitting on House of Delegates reference committees, and serving as a medical student delegate to the AMA.

Harmon also authored or co-authored two resolutions that were adopted by the House of Delegates. One resolution focused on reducing the psychological trauma of children in foster care. The other resolution added permanent representatives of the ISMA Medical Student Society and Resident/Fellow Society to the ISMA Commission on Legislation, a position that Harmon also held.

After graduation later this month, she will continue her medical education as a family medicine resident with Ascension St. Vincent in Indianapolis.