LEWISBURG, W.Va. (WVDN) – By the time Ethan Galloway, D.O., completed his four years at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM), his classmates and faculty knew him as a tireless student leader, an advocate for the osteopathic profession and a future emergency medicine physician.
But for Galloway, leadership never meant visibility for its own sake. It grew out of an instinct to represent others, improve systems and be useful to the people around him, whether that meant children in foster care, classmates navigating curriculum changes or patients facing significant health challenges.
At WVSOM, the Surgoinsville, Tenn., native served as curriculum committee representative for the Class of 2026, president of the Student Government Association for the 2023-2024 academic year and student representative on the school’s Board of Governors in 2024-2025.
Nationally, he was a member of the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine’s Council of Student Government Presidents, a student member of the American Osteopathic Association’s Board of Trustees and vice chair of its Bureau of Emerging Leaders.
Galloway’s experience as a leader began with participation in Kiwanis-related organizations during high school and college and continued when Tennessee’s governor appointed him a student member of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission as an undergraduate at East Tennessee State University. He said while he enjoyed learning how higher education worked in his home state, medical school allowed him how to lead by empowering others.
“WVSOM is where I developed my passion for servant leadership,” he said. “I love that I’ve been able to lead by working for my peers, my school and our profession.”
As curriculum committee representative during his first year of medical school, he participated in conversations about course delivery and collected student feedback during a period when WVSOM was designing its current Finding Health curriculum. Galloway said he led by listening, gathering perspectives and ensuring his classmates felt heard.
“I worked with the course directors who oversee each block that students go through. On behalf of my class, I expressed feedback on how we thought the different blocks were going and how the material was being comprehended. I designed a survey so I could assess what my class felt was going well, what wasn’t going well and what they needed help with, and I shared that data with the curriculum committee,” he said.
Later, as Student Government Association president and then student representative on WVSOM’s Board of Governors, Galloway helped make decisions on content delivery, learning platforms and other elements of the curriculum.
“I helped work on which evidence-based medical resources we were providing, how content delivery was going to look and following up on the new curriculum, making sure after we implemented it that students felt it was successful and that it showed in their course performance data and board exam scores,” he said.
Galloway’s service also extends to another role: volunteering as a court-appointed special advocate (CASA) for children in foster care and juvenile court systems. He began as an undergraduate and continued after relocating to Lewisburg, an experience rooted in personal history after having an advocate himself as a child.
“I had a CASA growing up and I wanted to give back,” he said. “I reached out while I was in college to help them as an organizational volunteer, and they encouraged me to take the class. I got certified and shadowed for a couple months and then decided I would start taking cases on my own. I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Galloway sees a clear thread connecting his early work with children to his future in medicine.
“Those experiences shaped how I approach everything,” he said. “They taught me that the small moments — taking the time to listen, to connect — can have a big impact.”
Having worked as a nursing assistant in an emergency room before medical school, he found himself drawn to emergency medicine. Clinical experiences reinforced his enthusiasm for the specialty.
“I wanted to keep an open mind, but after doing rotations in the ER, I fell in love with it all over again. It was my number one choice,” he said.
He ascribed his interest in emergency medicine to the ability to care for patients by offering strength in times of chaos.
“It’s about meeting people when they are at their most vulnerable,” he said. “Patients come to the ER during times of need, often when they had other plans for the day. I appreciate getting to have human connection in those moments and hopefully provide some emotional stability.”
Galloway sharpened his goals for the future through his participation in WVSOM’s Rural Health Initiative (RHI), which immersed him in underserved communities. Working in West Virginia’s Mason County, he encountered patients who needed care but didn’t want to leave their hometown. He said balancing patient safety with geographical realities taught him the importance of compromise.
“I loved every second of being immersed in rural communities and seeing what it’s like to practice in resource-limited environments. I learned so much from the people who live that life and the ways they’re adapting to challenges and overcoming them,” he said.
As he enters an emergency medicine residency at Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas, Galloway said he hopes to someday return to care for communities like those in which he was raised.
“I’ve lived in Appalachia my whole life, and I’d like to come back and take care of patients here, broadening my practice beyond the bounds of the emergency department,” he said. “I’d love to help expand street medicine programs and community paramedicine programs in the area.”
