Always a Flyer. 

The University of Dayton athletics communication department is writing feature stories on former Flyer student-athletes. If you or someone you know is an alumnus and competed for a Flyer varsity team, please email formerflyers@udayton.edu with the person's name, sport played and current professional position. 

Our fourth Flyer alum feature is on Dr. Andrew Steffensmeier, former UD men's golfer and current orthopaedic surgery resident. Read below on his experiences as a Dayton Flyer, and how his current role is impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
CINCINNATI – Former University of Dayton men's golfer Andrew Steffensmeier has many great memories of his time as a student-athlete at UD. Currently an orthopaedic surgery resident at University of Cincinnati Medical Center, Dr. Steffensmeier is working among the many healthcare workers battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

"As an orthopaedic surgery resident, our schedules have drastically changed to try to ensure that we do not get sick or spread COVID-19 to our patients or other providers," commented Steffensmeier. "We are taking the extra steps that the governor and hospital recommend. All elective surgeries have been canceled, so the main focus is on orthopaedic trauma, which has still been quite busy during this time. It is great to see how well the general population, as well as the physicians, have come together as a team to work to minimize/slow the spread of COVID-19."

A member of Dayton's golf team 2010-14, Dr. Steffensmeier graduated from UD in 2014 with a degree in pre-medicine. After earning an Atlantic 10 post-graduate scholarship, he went on to attend Wright State's Boonshoft School of Medicine. Now a surgical resident at UC, Dr. Steffensmeier took some time to answer a few questions for us.

What is your favorite athletics memory at UD?
Overall, my favorite golf memories all center around the relationships, competitions and endless hours spent with my teammates and coaches. That's what made college athletics so special for me. In terms of on course memories, my junior year we were playing in Louisville's tournament and it was the first day of the tournament, so a 36-hole day. I had not played very well the first 18 holes, but knew I was playing well enough to flip the switch at any point. On the second 18, I was matching birdies with bogies, so sitting around even par coming into hole 17 (hole 35 for the day), when I hit a smooth 7-iron into the par three and made a hole in one! I followed that up with a birdie on hole 18 (hole 36) and shot 69 on the second 18 holes to get our team up the leaderboard.

What is your favorite overall memory at UD?
There are so many great memories at UD, but overall, it has to be all the time hanging out on our porches in the nice weather with all my teammates, roommates and friends (one of them, now my wife, Kaitlyn Francis (Steffensmeier) who also graduated in 2014).

What did your time at UD mean to you?
My time at UD meant the world to me as I grew significantly as a person and I was able to get the full experience of friendships, academics and athletics. Between my teammates, roommates and classmates, there are so many people that I still stay in touch with from UD. With academics, I was able to be involved in many things outside of just classroom work, which continued to open my eyes to medicine as a possible career. And then, one thing I miss the most about golfing in college is the day in and day out competitiveness with my teammates.

Tell us about your journey to UD, experience during college, and steps to where you are now.
I was born in Austin, Texas, but my parents moved to Columbus, Ohio when I was young, so I grew up in Columbus. I am the oldest of four kids, three boys and one girl. Growing up, my siblings and I played many sports, but it was not until 7th-8th grade that golf really took off for me when I hurt my shoulder playing baseball, so I latched on to golf. At the end of high school, I had offers to play at various colleges and it was a rainy, dreary day when I drove up to UD to meet the new coach, Gip Hoagland, and see the campus. It was a downpour the day I visited, but when we got in the car to leave, I told my mom, "UD is the place I wanna be". Coach Hoagland still reminds me that I was his first recruit and I am very grateful I made the right choice to pick UD. The UD golf team is a family, I really mean that. While at UD, I was involved in Dr. Amit Singh's biology research lab and had some publications while working in the lab, I was part of the Berry Summer Scholars Thesis Institute and, probably most importantly, I met my wife while at UD! Kaitlyn Francis (now Steffensmeier) also attended medical school with me at Wright State Boonshoft School of Medicine, we got married after the first year of medical school and now we are both resident physicians in Cincinnati. We have a 16-month-old son, Owen who is just the best little guy ever!  Whenever I see or take care of patients in the hospital with UD gear on, I give them the "Go Flyers" and it always leads to us talking about how much we all enjoyed UD.

How did your experience as a student-athlete prepare you for your current career?
While interviewing for medical school, so many interviewers commented on how I was a college athlete and the main reason I think they did that was to discuss the way collegiate athletes have to be great at time management, work under pressure and work with what you get. A lot of these things that I learned while at the University of Dayton are still applicable today. While working and training at a very busy level I trauma center at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, it is extremely important to me, but most importantly, our patients that I manage my time well, act efficiently, stay up-to-date on the best treatments and relay this to the patient so we can make joint decisions in their care. When you are traveling for golf tournaments, you miss a decent amount of classes, so you learn to adapt and study whenever you get the chance, which is similar now in residency, because it is important to balance the work at the hospital with studying and home-life balance. Kaitlyn is also a physician in Cincinnati and works as a family medicine resident.

Closing thoughts?
I just want to say thanks to all of the people that helped me while I was at UD:  UD athletics, all the academic advisors, my coaches and teammates that made my experience an awesome one! Go Flyers!