Hello Scholars! Happy early Spring—otherwise known as Mud Season! Enjoy the sunlight when you can.
Southern NH shadow and service trip: Friday, March 31
I’m excited to invite interested Scholars to join us for a shadowing and service trip to southern New Hampshire on Friday, March 31. Our Southern NH AHEC partners can accommodate shadowing with providers that work with underserved populations, and service opportunities for 25 NH AHEC Health Equity Scholars (that’s you!) on that day. We are working on making contacts with shadowing hosts for the early part of the day—and a planning service event for the afternoon/evening. The service portion will involve a collaborative with BRING IT!, an out-of-school enrichment program for Manchester, NH, youth in grades 4–12. For this night, we will target recruitment from the general high school population at BRING IT!, many of whom are English learners and resettled to New Hampshire from other countries as refugees or immigrants. We will also be working with the ELO (extended learning opportunity) coordinators to identify students who have interest in health careers who have not been involved with BRING IT! or AHEC programs in the past.
Please let me know if you are interested in participating in this day by emailing me directly.
Our Baseline and Participation Surveys—Please Do Them!!!
Sorry to nag, but we want to give you that certificate at the end of your two years, stating that you are a NH AHEC Health Equity Scholar. Crystal will be sending you a link today/tomorrow. Please take a couple of minutes to complete! Thanks so much!
Best,
Kate
Upcoming Events
Microethics of Everyday Practice and Amelioration of Implicit Bias in Medical Visit Communication
Thursday, March 30, 2023
12:00–1:00 p.m.
Location: WTRB Williamson Room 571E & 571W* and by Zoom (Meeting ID: 931 9198 8464 | Passcode: 759300)
*If you plan to attend in person at WTRB, RSVP to amy.j.rossi@dartmouth.edu
Lunch to be served
Microethics is what transpires between every doctor and every patient, every day. It is the unremarkable and routine, moment-by-moment exchanges that reflect the social identities and cultural contexts each speaker inhabits. These exchanges mirror how patients and clinicians think and feel about one another—explicitly and consciously or implicitly and outside of conscious awareness. They mark relationships of respect, trust, and warmth or suspicion, disregard and rejection.
While these interactions are at the smallest and most intimate of levels, they also reflect the macro environment of social identities and cultural contexts at which clinical duties and professional ethics meet. It is not only the multiple roles that physicians and patients play in the wider society, but also the social identities they inhabit that have the potential to affect the ethical performance of professional duties and obligations. Moreover, despite the expectation that physicians are guided by ethical and professional precepts that demand impartiality in the care of patients, it is clear that physicians, like the majority of people in our society, hold negative views of individuals who belong to marginalized and stigmatized groups, including ethnic and racial minorities, the elderly and those with disabilities, mental illness, substance abuse, and overweight or obesity, among others (FitzGerald, 2017). Moreover, physician-held biases act to jeopardize high quality medical communication, undermine the patient-physician relationship, and negatively affect patients’ experience of care.
- Define the nature and dynamics of microethics in the routine medical practice.
- Consider the extent of implicit bias among health providers.
- Describe several studies designed to identify patterns clinicians’ visit communication associated with implicit bias and its consequences for patients’ visit communication and judgements of interpersonal care.
- Discuss current and new strategies to ameliorate the effects of implicit bias on visit communication.
Debra Roter, DrPH, MPH, is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is an internationally recognized authority on the study of patient-doctor communication, and the originator of the “RIAS,” one of the most widely used instruments for studying interactions in primary care and other types of medical visits.
Power Dynamics: Climate Change, Energy Insecurity and Health Equity
Thursday, March 30, 2023
6:00–7:00 p.m.
A presentation co-sponsored by NH Healthcare Workers for Climate Action and NH Public Health Association
Diana Hernandez, PhD, is a tenured Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Hernandez conducts research at the intersection of energy, equity, housing and health. A sociologist by training, her work focuses on the social and environmental determinants of health and examines the impacts of policy and place-based interventions on the health and well-being of socioeconomically disadvantaged populations.
An innovator in the field, Dr. Hernandez has operationalized and conducted foundational research on the concept of ‘energy insecurity’ which reflects the inability to adequately meet household energy needs. Her pathbreaking work on energy insecurity has explored the multiple dimensions of this phenomenon identifying sociodemographic disparities, adverse consequences and promising interventions toward energy justice.
Question. Persuade. Refer. (QPR) Training
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Question. Persuade. Refer: Three steps anyone can learn to help prevent suicide.
QPR is an innovative, practical and proven suicide prevention training. This quality education empowers all people, regardless of their background, to make a positive difference in the life of someone they know.
Just as people trained in CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver help save thousands of lives each year, people trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to help.
The self-guided online course takes approximately 1 hour to complete. To reinforce training, all self-paced learners receive an electronic version of the QPR booklet and a printable wallet card. The license remains active for 3 years.
The key components covered in training:
- How to Question, Persuade and Refer someone who may be suicidal.
- How to get help for yourself or learn more about preventing suicide.
- The common causes of suicidal behavior.
- The warning signs of suicide.
- How to get help for someone in crisis.
Climate Change, Children’s Health, and Equity
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
6:00–7:00 p.m.
A presentation co-sponsored by NH Healthcare Workers for Climate Action and NH Public Health Association
Lisa Patel, MD, is the Executive Director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, and Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford School of Medicine. She is a former Presidential Management Fellow for the Environmental Protection Agency where she coordinated the US Government’s efforts on clean air and safe drinking water projects in South Asia in collaboration with the World Health Organization, and received the Trudy A. Specinar Award for her work. She is a member of the Executive Committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Environmental Health and Climate Change, and a faculty mentor for Stanford Climate and Health. As a mentor, she works with students and residents on projects related to climate-resilient schools, environmental justice, sustainable healthcare, and medical education curriculum reform. Lisa received her Master’s in Environmental Sciences from the Yale School of the Environment, her medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and completed her training in pediatrics at UCSF.
Organizational Integrity: A Recovery-Based Approach to Inclusive Transformation
Thursday and Friday, April 20 and 21, 2023
8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Location: Billings Clinic (Billings, MT) and Zoom for virtual attendees
Healthcare provider bias is positively associated with adverse patient outcomes and health disparities. And while all people have some level of bias, healthcare providers are tasked with providing the best care possible to all patients – regardless of patient identity. How can healthcare workers stop bias from negatively impacting their patients while building capacity for inclusive, outcomes-based care?
In this three-part customized workshop series, participants will develop shared vocabulary and tangible skills to mitigate bias while moving towards organizational goals. By the end of the series, participants will have a two-year action plan with quarterly goals and yearly milestones to implement organizational objectives.
We have space on-site for 25 participants; seats will be first-come, first-served. Registration is required. Lunch will be provided both days and some lodging assistance may be available by request.
We will also have a virtual option available for those unable to travel to Billings.
Training Agenda:
1. eReview deployed 3/17/23: 1 online training hour, to complete by 4/20/23
2. Workshop One deployed 4/20/23: 6 live training hours
3. Workshop Two deployed 4/21/23: 6 live training hours
A Free-Enterprise Solution to Climate Change
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
6:00–7:00 p.m.
A presentation sponsored by NH Healthcare Workers for Climate Action
Bob Inglis is the Executive Director of republicEn.org. He was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1992, having never run for office before. He represented Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, from 1993-1998, unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Senator Fritz Hollings in 1998, and then returned to the practice of commercial real estate law in Greenville, S.C. In 2004, he was re-elected to Congress and served until losing re-election in the South Carolina Republican primary of 2010. In 2011, Inglis went full-time into promoting free enterprise action on climate change and launched the Energy and Enterprise Initiative (“E&EI”) at George Mason University in July 2012. In the fall of 2014, E&EI rebranded to become republicEn.org. republicEn is a growing grassroots community of over 10,000 Americans educating the country about free-enterprise solutions to climate change. The organization is a 501(c)(3) operation hosted at the George Mason University Foundation and educates, recruits and organizes conservative voices for action on climate change. For his work on climate change Inglis was given the 2015 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. He appears in the film Merchants of Doubt and in the Showtime series Years of Living Dangerously (episodes 3 and 4), and he’s spoken at TEDxBeaconStreet and TEDxJacksonville. Inglis was a Resident Fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics in 2011, a Visiting Energy Fellow at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment in 2012, and Resident Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics in 2014. Inglis grew up in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, went to Duke University for college, met and married his college sweetheart, graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law and practiced commercial real estate law in Greenville, S.C., before and between his years in Congress. Bob and Mary Anne Inglis have five children (a son and four daughters). They live on a small farm in northern Greenville County, South Carolina.
Free Suicide Prevention Workshop for Service Providers in Rural Communities
Tuesday, May 23, 2023
12:00 pm–3:30 pm
Between 2000 and 2020, suicide rates rose 46% in non-metro areas compared to 27.3% in metro areas. Now more than ever, learning actionable skills to help individuals at risk can make a critical difference. SafeSide Prevention and UR Medicine Recovery Center of Excellence together are offering a free, half-day workshop that provides participants with a systematic framework for suicide prevention.
This comprehensive training for service providers in rural communities includes special focus on youth, substance use, and Indigenous communities. The interactive workshop features video demonstrations, active discussion groups, and access to the latest research on best practices. For a year after the workshop—also at no cost—you can take advantage of ongoing support, including monthly Q&A video calls and online discussion forums.