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As Matt Oswalt, MD, launches his first solo practice as an allergist this month in Tupelo, he’ll have plenty of experience to build upon — starting with his own.

“I had allergies and moderate asthma as a child, so that was my first experience with an allergist,” said Oswalt, who is opening a clinic near the North Mississippi Medical Center campus.

A native of Fulton, Oswalt is a graduate of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where he also spent a residency in pediatrics and served as pediatric chief resident.

He completed a two-year fellowship in allergy and immunology at UMC this summer.
His new practice in Tupelo includes both children and adult patients.

“We obviously see patients with allergies like pollen and allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis,” he said. “We also see asthma patients, and those with food allergies and drug allergies.”

Among pediatric patients, Oswalt performs workups for immune deficiency, for children with frequent infections and for infants with failure to thrive caused by a defect in the immune system. Cues for an immune-deficiency referral from a child’s primary-care physician include frequent infections or infections that won’t go away.

The need for specialists to deal with allergy and immunology issues continues to increase. More and more children and adults are being diagnosed with allergies, with more than half of all U.S. citizens testing positive to one or more allergens, according to the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology.
Today, allergic rhinitis affects as many as 20 percent of all adults and 40 percent of children, costing a total of 2 million lost school days among American children each year.

The reasons for the rise in allergies may include simply improved diagnosis, Oswalt said.

“One theory says that as the environment gets cleaner, we’re not exposed to levels of bacteria chronically and this shifts your immune system to an allergic state,” he said.

“That is one hypothesis as to why allergies have increased over the last few decades, but I don’t think that’s been conclusively proven.”

Whatever the reasons, the rise in allergy diagnoses means an increasing need for specialists in the field — and Tupelo is no exception.

Also joining the Tupelo medical community is Oswalt’s wife, Christy, an endocrinologist who will practice alongside Dr. Jayant Dey in the Metabolic Disorders Institute PLLC, also affiliated with NMMC.

“I think there was a need for both of us, and we like the medical community as well,” Oswalt said. “Being from Fulton, it’s also kind of like coming home in a sense.”

In the years since Oswalt was a young patient himself, the greatest changes in asthma treatment for kids include the introduction of inhaled steroids delivered through a nebulizer compressor machine.

Available today, fashioned in kid-friendly designs like animals or cartoon characters, the nebulizer compressor delivers fine liquid mists of medicine through a mask, which fits over the nose and mouth, propelled by air or oxygen under pressure.

“In the past, you could give the medication to them with a metered dose inhaler,” Oswalt said. “But now with breathing machines, they can receive it a little more efficiently.”

As part of his fellowship work, Oswalt’s research included taking part in an ongoing study that considers the association between parental stress and wheezing in a child’s first year of life.

Following research at other institutions, the project at UMC is aimed at further exploring the link between family stresses such as death and divorce with the development of what eventually becomes asthma in children.

“We wanted to take our patient population at one of the clinics here and follow it over the year,” he said. “We’re definitely looking at that to observe the relationship with maternal and paternal stress.”

Oswalt’s research work also considered the expansion of allergens on a worldwide scale — for example, ragweed’s proliferation in Europe and its possible ties to global warming. It’s a subject that will likely continue to draw interest among researchers, as studies show that higher levels of greenhouse gases will boost pollen production.

Outside of work, Oswalt spends time watching college sports, playing tennis and traveling as his family’s schedule permits. He and his wife have three children: Colin, 4, Brynn, 2, and Owen, 6 months.

Starting their family while also completing their medical training has made for a challenging juggle of home and work responsibilities during the past years.
“Obviously, having a child and especially two when you’re doing every-fourth-night call means you have to work around each other’s schedule,” Oswalt said. “Thankfully, the grandparents have helped out tremendously.”



August 2008

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