Members

Victor Passy, MD, FACS (Chairman)

Dr. Passy was born in 1930 in Brooklyn, NY. After having served in the U.S. Army with a High Company Award, he graduated with a B.S. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1953. He matriculated at the College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons, Los Angeles, in 1955 and graduated in 1959 with the D.O. degree as a member of the Honor Society. He completed a rotating internship at the Los Angeles County Osteopathic Hospital and seven years of residency at the same institution in Ear, Nose, and Throat, and General Surgery.

It was during this residency that the merger occurred between the California Osteopathic Association and the California Medical Association. In 1962 Dr. Passy obtained the M.D. degree from the California College of Medicine. In order to ensure his specialty certification would be recognized, he repeated another residency under M.D. trainers in ENT at the Los Angeles County Hospital after the merger. In May 1970 he became certified by the American Board of Otolaryngology. Dr. Passy is a Fellow of the American Academy of Surgery.

For nearly 40 years Dr. Passy has been a full-time Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine (UCI-COM). He has served on numerous committees at UCI-COM. He published his extensive research in professional journals and books. His forte has been teaching at all levels of medical education.

In his endeavors to facilitate the relationship between allopathic and osteopathic physicians he has been a member of the 41st Medical Trust Committee since 1981. He is presently the Chair of the 41st Medical Trust Committee at the University of California, Irvine. He is Past President of the California College of Medicine Alumni Association.

Dr. Passy continues to serve on the active staff at UC Irvine Medical Center in Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Department. For many years he has been acting Head of the Otolaryngology Division.

Dr. Passy is depicted as the second person from the left in the photo above.

Dolores Grunigen, BS, BA

Mrs. Grunigen was born and raised in Modesto, California. At the University of Redlands she obtained a B.S. degree in business administration and additional administrative training. She was the Assistant Executive Officer and Consultant for the State Board of Medical Quality Assurance. Her responsibilities included to oversee the licensing of allied health professionals and to promote legislation for these professions. In 1962 she became responsible for evaluating the credentials and to determine the qualifications for licensure by the State Board of Medical Examiners of the newly M.D.-degreed former D.O.s.

Dolores met Dr. Forest Grunigen through her work at that office. They married in 1976 and lived happily in Newport Beach for 23 years in a home filled with art work that they collected during their world-wide travels. Dr. Grunigen passed away in 1999.

Since her retirement, Dolores Grunigen continues to contribute to excellence in medical education and training by supporting learning endeavors in mainstream and osteopathic medicine. She has been serving on the Board of the 41st Medical Trust for many years.

Mrs. Grunigen is depicted as the third person from the left in the photo above.

Richard Kammerman, MD, FAAFP (retired)

Richard Kammerman has the most interesting history since he achieved political leadership roles in both the Osteopathic Medical Society and the Allopathic Medical Society.

Dr. Kammerman attended COP& S from 1951 to 1956.  He found that the school created a culture of compassionate medicine.  Throughout his career he has been interested in osteopathic manipulation and used such modality until his retirement as a physician.  After his graduation from COP&S in 1956 he sought specialty training, but the few positions that existed in California for osteopathic specialists were filled.  Further, he was unsuccessful to obtain privileges in allopathic hospitals.  One exception was the Santa Ana Hospital which had a dual staff of both M.D.s and D.O.s. 

Early in his career he would seek surgical consultation for his patients from Los Angeles osteopathic physicians.  With the passage of time, he developed a professional relationship with allopathic specialists, including a urologist and an orthopedist.  At the Santa Ana Hospital, allopaths and osteopaths often worked together, a professional relationship which was relatively rare throughout the country at that time. 

Dr. Kammerman was not directly involved in the political maneuverings that were under way concerning the merger of the two medical professions.  He first began to hear information about such a merger in 1960.  Dr. Kammerman spoke to Vincent Carroll, D.O., concerning this matter and was told that the merger was inevitable.  Further, that the AOA was not supportive of the COA or of osteopathic physicians in California.  On the other hand, about this time he was advised by Dr. Eby that he was collecting money to fight the merger. 

Although the merger did not change his practice referrals, Dr. Kammerman was able to obtain privileges at Children’s Hospital and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Orange County.  The fact that he now was associated with such prestigious hospitals made several of his patients feel that his professional resources were more attractive to them.  Because of his extensive experience in doing minor procedures, such as dilatation and curettage, tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy, and conization of the cervix, he was permitted to carry out those procedures at the new hospital affiliations.  However, few general practitioners were permitted such surgical procedures as more specialists appeared in Orange County. 

Dr. Kammerman’s association with the UCI College of Medicine began early. He was on the Alumni Board of COP&S when it became the California College of Medicine, still located in Los Angeles.  As a member of that Board, he and other members of the Associated Alumni met the first Chancellor of UCI, Dan Aldrich. They recommended to the Board that CCM move to the UCI campus.  With the merger he was appointed to the staff of the Orange County Medical Center.  He attended a weekly clinic in Santa Ana and thereby became involved with the school.  He began to teach UCI medical students and has continued to do so to the present time. 

Early in his career in Orange County he became the Chairman of the Orange County branch of the California Osteopathic Association and served as President of the Orange County Osteopathic Society from 1960 to 1962 when it became dissolved.  Following the merger he became a delegate to the California Medical Association and from 1991 to 1992 became President of the Orange County Medical Association.  Thus, he has served as President of both local medical professions.  His activities with the Orange County Medical Association involved him in developing the CAL Optima program in Orange County, an important contribution to the healthcare program for the indigent of Orange County. 

Throughout his career, Dr. Kammerman has maintained a holistic approach that he acquired as a medical student at COP&S and in turn has attempted to instill in his teaching sessions as Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at UC Irvine School of Medicine to the present. At the Orange County Medical Center, he served as President of the Voluntary Faculty Association.

Dr. Kammerman is depicted as the fifth person from the left in the photo above.

Michael Seffinger, DO, FAAFP

Dr. Seffinger is a native Californian, born and raised in Los Angeles, and a graduate of Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1988. He interned at the Pacific Hospital in Long Beach under the tutelage of Stanley Golanty, M.D., a graduate of the College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons. In 1991, Dr. Seffinger graduated from the University of California, Irvine Family Medicine Residency Program while conducting research funded by the 41st Medical Trust, in the Department of Neurology, chaired by Dr. Stanley Van Den Noort.

In 1991, he joined a large multi-specialty group practice, Bay Shores Medical Group in Torrance, CA, which was directed at the time by Peter Culotta, M.D. and John Johnson, M.D., both COP&S graduates from the 1950s who obtained their M.D. degrees from the California College of Medicine.. He practiced family medicine in Gardena and Torrance until 1999. At that time he was recruited to teach at the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific (COMP) at Western University where he is now a tenured Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine.

When he started to teach he realized that there is no definitive, referenced text on the history of osteopathy in California and the relationship between the two medical professions. He thus set out to conduct this project, interviewing those that made significant contributions to California’s medical history, from both medical professions. His goal is to have these sources available for teaching and research worldwide.

Robert Steedman, MD, DABTS, DABS

After a demanding undergraduate education at UCLA, Dr. Steedman entered the College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons in 1955. Upon graduation in 1959 he interned for one year and trained for three years as a surgeon at the Los Angeles County Osteopathic Hospital, followed by two additional years of extended training in thoracic, pancreatic and bowel surgery. He obtained the M.D. degree in 1962 from the California College of Medicine.

He taught at Rancho Los Amigos and supervised Residents. Then he became a thoracic and cardiovascular Resident at Long Beach Veterans Hospital, while functioning at the same time as chief of the residents staff. He was so well-liked among students that they voted for him to receive the University of California Golden Apple Teaching Award. He was the first Resident to receive this award.

After one more year of training at the Orange County Medical Center he became a Diplomat of the American College of Surgeons and a Diplomat of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. He became a successful and well-respected cardiovascular surgeon at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, CA.

He had just started his practice when he was contacted by the Associated Alumni of the California College of Medicine to become a member of the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association of the California College of Medicine, University of California, Irvine. He also served as its president. Since 2005 he has been a member of the 41st Medical Trust Committee.

Dr. Steedman is depicted as the first person on the left in the photo above.

Stanley van den Noort, MD

Dr. van den Noort graduated from Harvard Medical School with the MD degree cum laude in 1954. He became a Diplomat of the Board of Neurology in 1963. His university appointments included Associate Professor of Neurology at Case Western Reserve University; Professor of Neurology, California College of Medicine, University of California, Irvine; Dean of the California College of Medicine, University of California, Irvine for 12 years; and Chair of the Department of Neurology, University of California, Irvine. He has held numerous hospital appointments and memberships in professional organizations.

In his endeavors to facilitate the relationship between allopathic and osteopathic physicians he has promoted research in the area of manipulation. He worked closely with Dr. Grunigen for 30 years on administrative and leadership tasks. Establishing a hospital on campus of UC Irvine had been Dr. van den Noort’s fervent goal. When instead the county hospital in Orange was obtained, he supported its development and expansion no less strongly. He officially retired from his tenured university position in 1996.

Dr. van den Noort is depicted as the fourth person from the left in the photo above.

Jen Yu, MD, PhD

Dr. Yu was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1943. He came to U.S. in 1969 after his graduation from National Taiwan University College of Medicine and one year military service. He received his Ph.D. degree (in Physiology) from University of Pennsylvania (UP) in 1972 and completed residency training in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R) at UP in 1975.

He was a faculty member in the Department of PM&R at UP and later the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He joined the Department of PM&R, University of California Irvine as a Professor in 1981 and has also been the Department Chair since 1982. Dr. Yu’s major research interest is the neurobiological basis of rehabilitation medicine. He has published more than 110 papers.

In his capacity as chair of PM&R, he has been asked to serve as a member of the 41st Medical Trust committee for many years.

Dr. Yu is depicted as the sixth person from the left in the photo above.