Stephen L. Putthoff, D.O., FCAP
Chair, Division of Patho-Physiology
Associate Dean of Biomedical Sciences

Following high school graduation, Dr. Putthoff entered the military and became a combat flash-qualified Special Forces light weapons specialist and medic in the US Army. In the Republic of Vietnam he was assigned to the II Corps Mobile Strike Force (B-20 ‘Mike Force’) - 5th Special Forces Group, and participated in multiple open and covert operations as a leader and operator with Montagnard mercenaries. He has been honored with multiple military medals, qualification badges and commendations. After an HPSP Scholarship funded medical school [at what is now the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences – College of Osteopathic Medicine], he re-entered the Army in the Medical Corps and completed his 5 PGYears at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver, Colorado, in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology. 

Subsequent assignments included Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (then, West Germany) and Brooke Army Medical Center (San Antonio, Texas), as Chief of Surgical Pathology. He elected to pursue other challenges and left the U.S. Army in 1987 with his second honorable discharge and an IRR rank of Lieutenant Colonel; Medical Corps.

Dr. Putthoff is certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology by the American Board of Pathology. He served for twenty years (1987-2007) at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine (TCOM) , with positions as Chairman of the Department of Pathology and the Center for Human Identification (DNA/Identity) and Associate Dean of Medical Education.  At TCOM he was honored numeous times with the ML Coleman Preclinical Sciences Professor of the Year and Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence. He has been credited by peers and knowledgeable authorities as a primary force in curricular evolution at TCOM to an adult, active learner, interactive systems-application approach to medical education.  This coincided with significant and documented increases in student National Board scores to the highest level among osteopathic medical schools.

As Associate Dean of Biomedical Sciences and Chairman of Pathophysiology at RVU, his primary focus is to utilize effective, modern medical education cognitive techniques emphasizing a pathophysiologic context (the basic science of clinical medicine) undergirded appropriately in congruency with the foundational biomedical sciences. Ultimately, the overarching goal is to structure methodologies that most effectively allow students to achieve competency to an appropriate level of differential diagnosis ability/comprehension and application of the biomedical sciences to clinical medicine by the end of Year Two of the RVUCOM medical curriculum.