Viola M. Frymann, DO, FAAO, FCA
July 18, 1921 – January 23, 2016
Retired December 2011 from the Osteopathic Center for Children
It is with our deepest regrets that we announce the recent passing of Viola M. Frymann, DO, FAAO, FCA, on Saturday, January 23, 2016, in San Diego, CA. She died naturally, surrounded by her many friends, colleagues, medical students and supporters during her last days.
In single-minded service to humanity, Dr. Frymann spent her professional life as an osteopathic physician. She was a renowned steward of the osteopathic profession, practical researcher and trusted educator. She is nationally recognized for her vision and determination to see osteopathic licensure restored successfully in California and for the founding and establishment of the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific, Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, CA, as well as her many contributions to the field of osteopathy.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.

OPC
Osteopathy’s Promise to Children is not a medical provider and does not provide medical services. All medical services rendered by physicians within Osteopathic Center San Diego are provided through such physicians’ independent medical practices and not through Osteopathy’s Promise to Children.
CONNECT WITH US
Osteopathy’s Promise to Children is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Tax ID: 33-0516906.
GET INFORMED
CONTACT
E-mail: info@the-promise.org
ADDRESS
3706 Ruffin Road
San Diego, CA 92123
“Dr. Frymann was my doctor as a child and subsequently my children’s doctor since birth. By witnessing and benefitting from her healing touch and profound treatments I feel compelled to support and assist the furtherance of the practice, (and its) teaching and research of Osteopathic care in a way that is meaningful. I will miss Dr. Frymann, her determination and faith in what she practiced every day that I knew her. We all draw inspiration from her still, as we move forward with her dream at Osteopathy’s Promise to Children. I will always remember her last visit to the new Osteopathic Center San Diego, and her excitement and approval with how her vision is progressing.”
“The OCA joins the rest of the profession in mourning the loss of Dr. Frymann. Her vision and leadership was invaluable. Her contributions include successfully working to restore osteopathic licensure in California and helping to found COMP/WUHS. She was instrumental in the development of generations of osteopaths (myself included) in the United States and abroad, and helped bring the cranial concept into the mainstream of our profession. She was active in research, teaching and clinical practice across seven decades. She advanced these endeavors through founding the Osteopathic Center for Children and its non-profit foundation Osteopathy’s Promise to Children (OPC) in 1982, which benefitted innumerable patients and students of osteopathy. OPC and the Osteopathic Center San Diego carry on her vision today.
Dr. Frymann was a Fellow of the Cranial Academy, Past President of the OCA, a Sutherland Memorial Lecturer, an Honorary Life Member, and a recipient of our Exceptional Service Award. She also served on the Board of the Sutherland Cranial Teaching Foundation, was a Fellow of the American Academy of Osteopathy, and a member of the American Osteopathic Association’s charter class of Great Pioneers in Osteopathic Medicine. Her profound impact will continue to be felt for generations. She will be dearly missed.”
“Dr. Viola Frymann DO FAAO, FCA was our leader, our mentor, our teacher and our friend. Her determination, wisdom, and leadership will go on far beyond the time that she spent with us. A student of William G. Sutherland the founder of Cranial Osteopathy who in turn was a student of the founder of Osteopathy Dr. Andrew Taylor Still she was our direct connection to Light the Osteopathy spoken about by the early Osteopath’s. She will be very much missed by those who knew her closely as well as those who only saw glimpse of her brilliance in the students that she taught. We can take solace in the fact that her teachings will continue, her legacy will move forward, and her memory will live on every time one of her students places the gentle hands on patient’s head, Dr Frymann teaching will be their. We have lost a giant in Osteopathy but her light and knowledge lives on in every patient, she treated and every student she touched around the world.”
“Dr. Frymann was primarily the one who influenced the admission process that got me into medical school at COMP back in 1980. I so respect and appreciate what she did for me and did for the Osteopathic Medical Profession. She did so much for so many.”
“It is with sadness, but also with profound respect and appreciation for her legacy, that I inform the WesternU community about the passing of Viola Frymann, DO, FAAO. Dr. Frymann, a native of London, England, who practiced and lived most of her life in the San Diego area, died Saturday afternoon at the age of 94.
A mainstay of California’s osteopathic profession, Dr. Frymann was a founding board member of the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific in 1977. She also served on the Board of Governors of the American Academy of Osteopathy, and was a founding member and past president of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons of California (OPSC) and of the Cranial Academy. In addition to serving on COMP’s founding board, she chaired the College’s OMM department, and continued to work as an adjunct faculty member until her retirement a few years ago.
Dr. Frymann’s many years in family practice in La Jolla were focused on the problems of children. In 1982, she founded the Osteopathic Center for Children. Dr. Frymann published research on newborn babies, the cranial rhythmic impulse, learning disabilities of children, and the effect of osteopathic manipulative treatment on children with neurologic developmental problems. Her collected works were published in a book by the American Academy of Osteopathy in 1998. She also taught at many colleges of osteopathic medicine in the U.S. and throughout the world.
Dr. Frymann received numerous awards during her life, including the Andrew Taylor Still Medallion of Honor, the William G. Sutherland Award of the Cranial Academy, an Honorary Doctorate of Science in Osteopathic Medicine from COMP, Osteopathic Physician of the Year from OPSC, the Philip Pumerantz Medal for “Distinguished Service and Extraordinary Commitment to the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific and the Osteopathic Medical Profession,” and life membership in OPSC for “the sacrifices and labor of love in bringing the osteopathic profession back from extinction” in the state of California. WesternU has greatly benefited from her presence and contributions.”
“Although we have never met, I feel like I know you. My mentors and teachers talk about you often and what an impact you had on their life. Just today, Dr. Laura Rampil was showing me a technique you taught her to release the shoulder and I asked her “Why did she place her hands in a certain place under the axilla?” She replied bluntly, “Because she told me to”. I am saddened that I haven’t had the opportunity to meet you in person, however I am so grateful and blessed to be surrounded by those that you have touched and gifted your insights and knowledge to.
Thank you for all that you have given our profession: For your teachings and your passion for osteopathic medicine that is so powerful it has reached DOs in all parts of the country.”
“It is with great sadness and respect that I wish to announce the death of Dr. Viola Frymann DO, FAAO, Saturday January 23rd 2016, at 2 o’clock p.m. in San Diego, surrounded by her loved ones. I feel gratitude for having known her, for all she has given to the international community and to each person she met. She devoted her life to Osteopathy, to its expression according to Tradition.
She studied with William Garner Sutherland and Thomas Schooley. She devoted her life to the newborn, preemies and young children.
She had a righteous character that could appear to certain people as severe, but at the bottom of her heart there was immense compassion and great love, without complacency, infinite. Her teaching was precise, efficient, generous and rigorous.
She inspired osteopaths around the world. Her work is immense and inspiring to future generations.
During the past weekend, I was in San Diego to teach a seminar at the Osteopathic Center for Children that she had founded. The center and her foundation, Osteopathy’s Promise to Children, were her life’s work. I met her at her home, even though she was weak, she was still very present. She was my mentor for the past 40 years; I met her and started following her teachings when I was in 3rd year, in Paris. I then went to see her work with her patients in the small yellow house near the Pacific in La Jolla. She had enough confidence in me to let me work with her during this trip. Later, she invited me to give post-graduate courses in San Diego in her center for American Osteopaths.
I was honored and for the past 17 years I have been going to California to teach. She accepted to come to Montreal over 10 times and each time she was always satisfied with our work. We also had the pleasure to invite her to the Deutsches Osteopathie Kolleg where she gave seminars during the symposium on the isle of Frauenchiemsee.
She encouraged us when I told her that we would create a college in Montreal in 1981, in Germany in 1991 and in Toronto in 1992. She always encouraged us. She appreciated that we could teach the true osteopathy. She often asked about our students and about the progression of the recognition of our profession. She was proud of us.
She had confidence in us, supported us and finally, she believed in our research and findings concerning the endocranium. She herself did experimentation in Saint Petersburg with professors Chepolvanikov and Moskalenko. Her Osteopathic heritage is human and incalculable.
I bring this news so that you accompany her if you wish in your prayers and that you always think of all she has given with conviction, determination and courage.
I do not have the intention to tell you the complete story of Dr. Frymann. I do not believe that anyone could do so in such little time. Her life is so full of work, of helping the little ones. We will do this later.
I wish to convey my sincere feelings and pray for her so that her Conscience be happy in the community of Conscience, I am sure in my heart that this is so. Thank-you and all my love to this grand lady of Osteopathy. Our responsibility is huge now; all our elders are gone now and must transmit their heritage with humility.
Please share the news, thank you very much.”
“What an inspiration Dr. Frymann was for all of us that had the good fortune to work for her. She was tireless in her efforts to ensure that each patient received her full attention and that every parent walked away knowing that they, along with their child, were well cared for. As the Director of the Center for many years, I witnessed firsthand her absolute commitment and love for osteopathy as well as her unwavering faith in God. She was a healer and a teacher who walked circles around the rest of us. She would often return from teaching overseas and come directly to the Center from the airport, prepared to work a full day. The doctors that she taught as well as the families that she treated were all devoted to her, and she to them. Her patients and their families came from all over the United States, as well as from Russia, Colombia, Mexico, and many European cities. Some came seeking a miracle for a child the rest of the medical professional had given up on. Some of these children were never supposed to be able to talk, or walk, or learn, or grow. Dr. Frymann saw the child, not the condition. Her motto was – let’s help each child reach THEIR full potential. Every child that came in was welcomed and loved. They were treated with gentle care, soothing music and Dr. Frymann’s magical touch. It was an honor working with Dr. Frymann and witnessing her truly remarkable life.”
“Dr. Viola Frymann became our family physician after she had been recommended by a mother whose child had been saved from having a kidney removed. Through the years, two miracles with me and two miracles with my son stimulated me to start asking questions. The result was my acceptance of JESUS CHRIST as my LORD AND SAVIOR.
She not only became my physical healer, but also my spiritual guide and friend. I am so thankful that she is now in her true home with the GOD she loved above all things.”
“I was deeply saddened to hear of Dr. Frymann’s passing. I was the person who made the initial contact with OPC with respect to the leasing of the OCC building on 54th place. I was taking a tour of the building with Sharon Leemaster and we happened to pass Dr. Frymann’s office. She welcomed us in and we chatted about our school’s mission to help children and how well it aligned with OPC’s mission to do the same. I am from originally from England so we chatted briefly about our hometowns and I was impressed by her warm welcome. Bringing to mind the old adage “mighty oaks from little acorns grow”, I still marvel that from that original visit, Dr. Frymann never seemed to waiver in her support and encouraged the growth and flourishing of the Waldorf High School. We send her off to her next adventure with love and light, and with much gratitude. She leaves a wonderful legacy!”
“I am an osteopath practicing in New Zealand. I was very sad to hear of the passing of Dr. Viola Frymann. Her teachings influenced me both as a student and osteopath. Please pass on my condolences on to her family, friends, and the staff / faculty at Osteopathy’s Promise to Children.’Death is not extinguishing the light, it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.'”
http://news.westernu.edu/westernu-celebrates-legacy-of-osteopathic-pioneer-viola-frymann-do/
“A Tribute to Viola M. Frymann, MB, DO, FAAODist, FCA: Pillar of Osteopathic Medicine Dies”
Click to read: http://digital.turn-page.com/i/640098-february-2016/10
“With my heartfelt sympathy to all family members and OPC affiliated, I extend my deepest condolences in the passing of our beloved Viola M. Frymann, D.O.
She was my physician for over 35 years and I had the pleasure of being in her bible study classes at St. James Episcopal Church, when she was not traveling.
I became President of OPC for the purpose of relocating her practice from La Jolla to San Diego, a four-year project. It was a pleasure traveling with her through various states to raise funds and hear her lectures she gave to many physicians. She had numerous sessions with doctors from all over the world who came for two- or three-week sessions. It was a pleasure to have learned of their reasons for coming from far away places; the lack of medicines! She ended her lectures by reminding all in attendance at conferences, “Remember Jesus is the healer; you are his hands.”
Most of all, she exercised her faith by praying for her patients and I know from experience how well that worked for me at St. James during a public concert. The healing that took place has been long lasting without regular prescriptions. I was indebted to her for which reason I became President of OPC. She lived to see her dream come true.
Viola M. Frymann, D.O. was a beautiful gift to the WORLD, especially to children whose lives she touched.”
“She was my first ray of hope. She taught me nearly everything I know about healing and curing, about what it means to be human and whole. Her life not only affected ours but those of thousands of people around the world, and she worked and traveled and taught until her retirement at age 90, five years ago.
We will miss her and are grateful to have spent so much time, literally, under her powerful hands…”
Read more here: http://www.elizabethaquino.blogspot.com/2016/01/dr-viola-frymann-do-1921-2016.html#links
“During three years I had work, one month with the Doctor Viola Frymann, I just learnt that she was died in January. Tomorrow I shall pray with all of you in her memory and love. Yours affectionately…”
“We cannot speak of the development of osteopathy we see today in Japan without mentioning Dr. Viola Frymann’s contribution. Our progress largely relies on her effort to teach us knowledge, techniques and the philosophy of osteopathy.
She came for the first time to Japan to give us a lecture in 1985. Since then, she kindly kept coming back for passionate lectures. She also treated many disabled children here. We are thankful to her for all things she did for us. We promise that we pass what we’ve learned from her down to the future generations of Japanese osteopaths so that we can help as many people suffering as possible.
Also, we have to be thankful to her for her advice that the three osteopathic associations in Japan had to be united [with] each other, sharing the common purpose of development of osteopathy in Japan. We are celebrating 20th anniversary of the Japan Osteopathic Federation next year.
We hope she still keeps her eye on us from the heaven and we pray her soul may rest in peace.”
“In 1986, Dr. Frymann asked me to assist her in raising funds for a new Osteopathic Center and to help raise additional funds so that all children could be treated whether or not the family had the financial capacity.
To do this I helped her found a separate nonprofit organization which she named Osteopathy’s Promise to Children. She was blessed with extraordinary leaders who served as president of The Promise and I would like to acknowledge their significant role in making the OPC what it is today. Emmanuel Lippett served as the inaugural OPC president and he was followed by Ruth Harper, Werner von Gundell, Rosary Grace Nepi Ph.D., and now Byron Wade.
For over 30 years she was my friend and my “Boss”. I would not be the healthy individual today were it not for treatments by Dr. Frymann and the staff she gathered and mentored. She was dedicated to families and my family received many benefits from her thoughtful and feeling care.”
“I preside at almost no liturgical occasions anymore. Because of the schedules of parish clergy, I am being pressed into service Saturday for the funeral of Viola Frymann.
She would no doubt find it curious that doing this makes me anxious. She was a parishioner at St. James when I was rector. That now goes back 20 years. She was a doctor of osteopathy of international stature, a student of the Bible, and a woman of such conviction that it made me nervous to let my instinctive relativism show when she was around.
She always greeted me with a kindly smile, that seemed not only gracious, but an x–ray into your soul. I wasn’t sure I had a soul. Viola assured me I did. Whether she regarded it as dark or light, she never revealed.
The death of her child transformed her life into a healer of children, many given up by traditional medicine. She had a mentor who helped her learn the controversial treatment that she practiced and taught around the world. She had an experience of God that nourished her conviction that her work was not merely driven by medical knowledge, but by divine mandate.
I sometimes sat in on the Bible study she took part in every Sunday. Put off at first by her much more fundamentalist approach than mine, I came to respect and admire her integrity. She not only tolerated my more liberal understanding of scripture, but she showed more respect for the authority of my ordained office than I sometimes felt I deserved.
I sat at her feet on many an occasion, and will again Saturday as we bury her ashes in the church yard.”
“I deeply regret that Viola passed [away]…. More than 20 years I have collaborated with her. We published numerous joint papers and brochure (in Russian). [A] number of times we together provided joint seminars [in] different countries and [they were] always accepted with interest…”