Dr. Sutton advocates internal medicine, osteopathic focus
Posted: August 16, 2017
John Sutton, DO, ’89, is a voice for his profession.
A graduate of A.T. Still University’s Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine (ATSU-KCOM), Dr. Sutton currently serves as president of the American College of Osteopathic Internists (ACOI), a group representing thousands of osteopathic physicians who practice internal medicine.
The mission of the ACOI is to promote high quality, distinctive osteopathic care of the adult. The ACOI seeks to be the organization that osteopathic internists think of first for education, information, representation, and service to the profession.
The role suits Dr. Sutton’s personality, passion, and focus.
As a medical student, Dr. Sutton was well-liked. During his junior year, he became class president, a foundational role that helped forge his current managerial acumen. As a Christian believer, a faith passed down from his father, a pastor, he is inspired to help others. And his continued role as an adjunct clinical professor at ATSU-KCOM — a position he maintains by taking two weeks out of every year to teach future physicians a course in clinical endocrinology on the College’s campus in Kirksville, Missouri, even as he regularly lives and works in Carson City, Nevada — encapsulates his fierce dedication and willingness to, literally, go the extra mile.
Dr. Sutton is an outspoken advocate for both the endocrinological profession and the osteopathic focus. For the past 14 years, he has run a solo practice in osteopathic endocrinology. Before that, he practiced as part of a group of osteopathic endocrinologists in Detroit, Michigan, a job he held for nearly a decade.
With the merging of osteopathic and allopathic postgraduate medical education training, Dr. Sutton continues to endorse, and revere, general instruction in treating “body, mind, and spirit.” This high standard of care should be available to all patients, he believes.
However, Dr. Sutton worries about a shortage of American endocrinologists. One of his goals is to serve as a mentor to others, encouraging students to consider focusing on internal medicine as a career.
In addition to his leadership role at ACOI, Dr. Sutton serves on the Level 1 Examination item writing committee for the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners (NBOME), and is a faculty member in the NBOME’S Department of Internal Medicine, Geriatric Medicine, and Dermatology.
Overall, Dr. Sutton’s Christian faith remains paramount, guiding everything else; professing it is the primary purpose of his life. His medical career has been an enormous blessing, he says, and all he has accomplished is a “gift from God.”