COMP Professor named AOF Educator of the Year

Alan Cundari, DO, MS, a Western University of Health Sciences alumnus and longtime professor and department chair, has been named the American Osteopathic Foundation’s 2012 Educator of the Year.

“It is a great honor to receive this,” Cundari said. “It is wonderful to be recognized by a large institution such as this for work you do in preparing students you hope will do an excellent job of patient care.”

Cundari is one of two recipients of the award, which honors and recognizes osteopathic educators who inspire greatness and change lives, and who have made long-standing contributions to the profession in the academic arena. He was nominated by COMP Dean Clinton Adams, DO, and will receive the award at the American Osteopathic Foundation’s annual Honors Celebration on Oct. 6, 2012 in San Diego.

“Dr. Cundari passes his unfailing commitment to osteopathic medicine on to his students through his actions and his bearing,” Adams said. “He believes it critical that tomorrow’s osteopaths have ingrained in them the physician’s responsibility to their community, and demonstrates that responsibility by ‘walking the talk.’”

Cundari, a 1985 graduate of the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific, has served as an educator and family physician role model for more than 20 years at WesternU. He is involved in numerous volunteer activities, including providing student-athlete sports physicals for two local school districts and leading the Pomona Homeless Outreach Project and the Pomona Community Health Action Team, which provides medical care and preventative care to the homeless and low-income families and the uninsured in the area.

He has served as COMP’s Chair of Family Medicine since 1999 and significantly contributed to a major curricular update at COMP in 2005.

“His dedication to students, patients, the community and the osteopathic profession embodies the compassionate, caring philosophy that is the foundation not only of WesternU’s mission, but of osteopathic medicine as a whole, “Adams said. “Dr. Alan Cundari lives and practices the humanism that defines WesternU and the practice of osteopathic medicine. I can think of no finer soul deserving of the Educator of the Year award.”