Bret Ripley, D.O., FACOFP, FPLI, chair of family and internal medicine and a DMU family medicine clinician, received the Iowa Osteopathic Medical Association’s Physician of the Year Award during the annual IOMA meeting in May. He was nominated by multiple DMU faculty.A former engineer, and physicist, Dr. Ripley, left a career in the defense industry to pursue family practice, osteopathic manual medicine and education. A graduate of A.T. Still University Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, he completed a dually accredited family practice residency at United Health Services in Johnson City, NY. After three years in rural practice in Kentucky, he served as osteopathic residency director and osteopathic director of medical education at the Shenandoah Valley Family Practice Residency in Front Royal, VA. In 2011, Dr. Ripley added the role of chief academic officer at the Appalachian Osteopathic Postgraduate Training Institute in Pikeville, KY.
In 2013, he was one of 10 members of the inaugural class of the Physician Leadership Institute of the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians (ACOFP), a program designed to prepare and support members to become leaders in the ACOFP and in their local organizations. He was named an ACOFP Fellow in the spring of 2013.
More recently, Dr. Ripley served as interim dean of the DMU College of Osteopathic Medicine until Gregory Christiansen, D.O., M.Ed., FACOEP-D took the office on Dec. 1, 2016.
