From hurricanes to COVID, alumnus reflects on a career in public health
By Kaitlin Thorne | Editor
Alumni
From hurricanes to COVID, alumnus reflects on a career in public health
By Kaitlin Thorne | Editor
Michael Lappi, D.O. ('98)
For most students, entering medical school is the first step toward a career providing health care directly to patients. Michael Lappi, D.O. (’98), assumed the same would be true for him when he entered as a first-year medical student at what was then known as the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1993. He attended on the Health Professions Scholarship program with the United States Navy and had plans of becoming a surgeon. Little did he know that throughout his career he would work in crisis situations internationally, rise to the rank of Captain within the United States Navy and eventually serve as the Chief Medical Officer for Corning Incorporated, a global leader in materials science and a Fortune 500 company.
“I wanted to be a surgeon because it tied to my Ph.D. work,” Lappi said. For his doctoral studies at Ohio State University, he was researching cardiovascular physiology. “I was looking for that tie-in. I thought, how do I bring together these things I’m finding in the lab and actually bring it to a patient outcome experience?”
This desire was a large part of what drew him to Heritage College. “I was looking for a school that understood what it was I was trying to do and was going to help me develop.”
So how did the young medical professional go from surgical aspirations to public and global health?
“We have the military to thank for that,” Lappi said. Following medical school, Lappi was deployed to Afghanistan, which provided him with a deep understanding of leadership and working with a team to solve large-scale problems. He recalls the austere conditions of the environment and the challenges of working with an unfamiliar population and complex government entities. This pivotal time early in his career shaped how he would approach health care.
“I was working with broad-ranging groups–different cultures, populations, levels of education and desired health outcomes. All of those are what we later call ‘social determinants of health,’ and we were interacting with them on a daily basis. So, the appreciation for public health became part of my daily life.”
Public health
Despite his love for surgery, Lappi decided that he could make a greater impact by switching to public health. To pursue this, after completing Undersea Medical Officer training, the Navy sent Lappi to Harvard University to complete his medical residency and earn a Master of Public Health degree. He was finishing the first year of his MPH program right before hurricanes Katrina and Rita were predicted to make landfall in 2005.
Lappi noticed the intersection between what he was learning in the classroom and the possible devastation the hurricanes were predicted to bring. This led him to send an email to the Dean of the School of Public Health asking what could be done. Harvard didn’t have any plans in place at that time, so they connected him with a team of people who did humanitarian work and disaster response.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast in the fall of 2005, bringing a staggering level of destruction to the region, particularly in New Orleans. The combined death toll is an estimated 1,512 people and caused $143.5 billion in damages.
When Lappi arrived in New Orleans, to lead the first-ever American Red Cross Public Health team, he saw the devastation first-hand. Looking back now he can clearly see the trajectory of how his past experiences shaped his efforts in aid.
“The skill set that I developed in the Navy, in combination with what I was learning at Harvard and I had learned at Ohio University, I was able to apply to crisis management down in New Orleans,” Lappi said. “When I think of public health, for me it is more specific toward crisis management. It’s a motivating time for folks because all of the normal barriers tend to fall away with a crisis of that magnitude. The U.S. was struggling to get food and water in place. Medical systems were completely overloaded. The power was out, and the water was flooded everywhere. So, to be able to take all these things that I had learned and use them in a crisis redefined how I thought I could be impactful in a way that I hadn’t expected.”
In times of crisis like natural disasters, when basic needs like food, shelter, water and medicine are not guaranteed, health care providers are forced to get creative. Lappi witnessed this during various hurricanes, during onsite earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti (2010) and later when he was called to serve during the largest public health crisis in the past 100 years.
Workers move patients up the stairs from the parking garage to the helipad to be evacuated from Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Brad Loper). Health care workers like Lappi faced difficult conditions like this during the hurricanes' aftermath.
COVID-19
In early January of 2020, Lappi, in his role as Chief Medical Officer for Corning Incorporated, received a phone call notifying him of a mysterious illness present in a Corning manufacturing facility in Wuhan, China.
“I had my first COVID case [at the company] seven days after the world had even recognized that anything was happening,” Lappi said. “We didn’t know what it was, but the individual was already hospitalized.”
After hearing about the first case of COVID-19 at Corning, Lappi worked with global government agencies and others at Corning to determine the extent of the situation. This allowed them to adapt their protocols and explore new ways to handle the unknown factors of the pandemic. All the while, Corning communicated with its approximately 50,000 employees and the global communities in the 40+ countries where its sites are based.
The relationships between Corning and the surrounding communities were something Lappi had spent time fostering before the pandemic. This was a key factor in Corning’s ability to contribute to the fight against COVID. As experts in glass production for medical use, Corning was working to manufacture glass vials used for COVID vaccines, work that was deemed essential and supported by the federal government.
Health care workers fill syringes with the COVID-19 vaccine during a Community Health Programs mobile vaccination clinic in 2021. The vials used to fill the syringes are the Valor Glass vials produced by Corning Incorporated.
“It was super critical that we had the relationships we did with the local communities,” Lappi said. “We were on a first-name basis with the hospitals and public health departments, so we were able to have super candid conversations and problem solve on the fly.”
Similarly to what he experienced during hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it came down to simple things like providing the necessary supplies to the community, including masks and reagents for the COVID tests. Through these efforts, contact tracing and communicating openly, Corning safely kept employees working and, to date, has enabled the delivery of more than three billion doses of COVID vaccines.
In the years since the pandemic began, Lappi has discussed with Chief Medical Officers from other companies and institutions about what lessons to take from the COVID era. Relationships and community impact are often mentioned. He says it’s about more than direct medical care, it’s learning about the education system, what access to nutritious food is like and how the company can impact each of these things. It’s the social determinants of health that Lappi first encountered while deployed with the Navy and the mind for service that he learned while in medical school.
“I’m incredibly grateful to Ohio University and the Navy for giving me the opportunity to do all of these things that I’ve done,” Lappi said. “I think that service mindset that we have in Ohio, and at Ohio University in particular, really fits into the service that I have spent 30-plus years giving to the Navy. I try to encourage people to think about service in that way.”
Lappi encourages those entering the medical field to explore the possibilities and impact that a career in public health can offer.
“I’ve been able to work with incredible people all over the world, Lappi said. “My experiences have resulted in, most importantly, a meaningful career. To be of service and to impact the lives of others, especially in times of critical need, is something I’ll always be grateful for.”
“My experiences have resulted in, most importantly, a meaningful career. To be of service and to impact the lives of others, especially in times of critical need, is something I’ll always be grateful for.” - Michael Lappi, D.O.
Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine
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