Tag Archives: Minority Health

Celebrating Reaner Shannon

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Reaner Shannon, Ph.D. (M.A. ’78, Ph.D. ’83), part of the UMKC School of Medicine for 34 years, died July 13 at the age of 85.

Shannon began her career at the school as the main research lab technologist. In 1990, she left the lab to become director of the minority affairs office at the school, becoming the school’s first associate dean for minority affairs in 1998, a post she held until she retired in 2008. That year, she was presented the Bill French Alumni Service Award.

Shannon and her husband, Henry Shannon, established the Dr. Reaner and Mr. Henry Shannon Lectureship in Minority Health in 2006. Speakers of local and national interest have presented the lecture each February since in conjunction with Black History Month, focusing on timely topics that impact underserved and minority communities.

Mike Weaver, M.D., ’77, a member of the UMKC School of Medicine’s first graduating class to complete the school’s six-year program, delivered the 2022 lecture.

“Reaner Shannon was an insightful, compassionate, and tireless advocate for URiM (Underrepresented in Medicine) students, who was well ahead of her time.  Long before it was common to talk about health equity, Dr. Shannon recognized that the lack of attention to minority health was creating an ongoing healthcare disparities crisis. She raised awareness on these issues and encouraged the School of Medicine to bring these topics to medical education,” Weaver said. “The Dr. Reaner and Mr. Henry Shannon Endowed Lectureship in Minority Health is a testament to that vision and her intention to ensure that medical students at UMKC would forever have access to thought leaders in this area.”

“She recognized that URiM students experience unique challenges in medical school, and she was a mentor who helped hundreds of students mitigate those challenges and successfully graduate,” he continued. “I am very grateful that I was one of those students when I met her back in 1973. She helped me navigate some difficult situations, was affirming, and always had an open door and a warm smile.”

Shannon established the UMKC School of Medicine Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council in 2001 to promote a diverse, nondiscriminatory learning and working environment for the school. It was charged with promoting cultural competency, awareness, inclusion, respect and equity through education, training, programing and advancement. The Council hosts a Diversity Symposium bringing together all departments across the School of Medicine to create goals and recognize existing efforts towards more diverse, equitable, and inclusive environments and work execution.

Shannon also launched Saturday Academy, a free program designed to spark interest in and help prepare young people for potential careers in health care. The program provides students in grades six through 12 with two and a half hours of classes that focus on math and science as well as ACT prep.

2022 class of Summer Scholars view an ventilation demonstration.

She started a similar program, Summer Scholars, that invites minority and disadvantaged students in the Kansas City metropolitan area to take part in a two-week session each July. They receive daily instruction in academic areas such as chemistry and language arts, and study anatomy and physiology in the school’s cadaver lab. Summer Scholars has grown from a single two-week experience for local underserved high school students that Shannon began more than 40 years ago to four different programs provided for high school and undergraduate college students.

“I’d like to think I made an impact in the lives of those students who, in some cases, might not have known that studying medicine was even an option,” she said when presented with the Bill French award. “It was important for me to build in the lives of young people, to help them in any way that I could to succeed.”

Shannon also served on the board of directors for the Black Health Care Coalition and the Edgar Snow Foundation.

STAHR program changing lives of UMKC’s underrepresented health profession students

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Members of UMKC’s STAHR (Students Training in Academia, Health, and Research) program participated in a kickoff event to start the school year.

Sayra Nieto Gomez realized there would be challenges as an underrepresented minority student at the UMKC School of Medicine. More important, the fourth-year med student also discovered a program that has helped her, and others like her, rise to meet the challenges that many underrepresented minority students deal with in the health care field.

The Students Training in Academia, Health, and Research (STAHR) Partnership is a collaborative of the UMKC schools of medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. The program is designed to increase the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds entering health care programs and better prepare them for success academically and professionally.

Sayra Nieto Gomez

“As a student, the STAHR program has provided a safe environment for me to be myself and to learn from students and physicians facing similar challenges,” Gomez said. “The most impactful thing that I’ve gained from this program is knowing that challenges persist through a person’s career. But as students and future physicians, we learn to adapt and grow from those challenges.”

STAHR is a two-pronged initiative that was started in 2018 to build and expand on the medical school’s highly successful high school Summer Scholars program and the dental school’s Admissions Enhancement Program.

Today, in addition to a greatly expanded scholars program that offers multiple tracts for high school and college students to learn about and prepare for careers in health care, STAHR encompasses an ambassador program that provides current UMKC health professions students with meetings and mentorship opportunities. Ambassador workshops take place several times a year to help students learn and develop pertinent skills such as overcoming self-doubt and develop strategies to achieve academic success.

It’s also vital in helping students create a community of like-minded peers, said Scott Guerrero, director of the STAHR program.

“We use the Thomas Principles that focus on academic support, psychological support, identity development, leadership, sense of belonging and professional development,” Guerrero said. “Our first workshop was on academic support where we talked about what it means to be academically successful and how to overcome challenges in the classroom or within their setting.”

A November workshop focused on mental health and wellness and how to cope with the stress of being a health professional student and burnout.

Natinael Mamo

“Being part of the STAHR program has helped me get to this point in my pharmacy degree,” said fourth-year pharmacy student Natinael Mamo. “The most impactful thing for me has been the numerous resources introduced to help me attain my academic and professional goals.”

He’s not alone. Students from economically and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds typically succeed in attending and completing health professions degree programs at a far lower rate than students from strong schools in thriving communities. But at UMKC, as many as 150 students and more than 130 staff and health professionals across the UMKC Health Sciences Campus and community are participating in the STAHR Ambassador and Scholars programs that are changing that dynamic.

Now in its fourth year, STAHR initially received a five-year $3.2 million grant from the United States Health Resources and Services Administration. Guerrero said he will soon be applying to renew the grant while also working on other sustainability efforts.

In the meantime, he has a broader vision for STAHR, which is already helping many students succeed in preparing for careers in health care.

“Our recruitment efforts and outreach efforts need to ramp up,” Guerrero said. “We’d love to do STAHR Days – have students come and learn about each of our programs. We’d like to recruit more economic or educationally disadvantaged students and just share our story, the benefits of a mentorship program and the success of the students in our program and their sense of belonging.”

Mamo is one of those success stories. He said the Ambassadors program has helped him through the rigors of pharmacy school in part by fostering a better relationship with faculty members and peers that may not have occurred otherwise.

“I would tell students that you should join STAHR to further enhance your experience within your program,” he said. “The STAHR program is led by many supportive and uplifting people who are here to guide you in utilizing your resources and to succeed in your profession. You grow through the support of all the faculty and professionals who contribute to STAHR and interactions with students in other health professions.”

Guerrero admits the growth of STAHR is stretching him and his staff. But the payoff, he said, is worth the effort.

“At times, it’s pushing us to our limits,” he said. “But I go back to our students need it. They’re going to grow and learn more when we can make the experience as individualized as possible, but also cater to what they’re looking for.”

Gomez said the STAHR program is making it possible for young people who are passionate about becoming a physician like her to attain that dream.

“The STAHR program creates a community of people who support us and help us throughout our challenges, which is very important to our success,” she said.

AMA Past-President Discusses Need for Leadership During Annual Lecture on Minority Health

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The immediate past-president of the American Medical Association, Patrice Harris, M.D., said leadership is vital to properly address the persistent gaps and inequities in health care that have been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Harris delivered the UMKC School of Medicine’s Dr. Reaner and Mr. Henry Shannon Lecture in Minority Health on Feb. 12 in a virtual event. She served as president of the AMA in 2020 during the onslaught of the pandemic.

View the 2021 Dr. Reaner & Mr. Henry Shannon Lectureship in Minority Health

“I think we can all agree that we have a lot on our to-do list, going forward, post COVID, and it’s going to require leadership,” said Harris, the first African American woman to serve as AMA president.

Harris said that as the coronavirus evolved, one of the AMA’s primary roles under her guidance was to ensure that the organization provided the most up-to-date, evidence-based resources and information in the midst of a public health crisis.

“You want to make sure that you are leading and providing accurate information,” she said. “Clearly it was also our priority to make sure that physicians, practices and health care systems had the resources needed to navigate through the disruption. It certainly has been a tremendous disruption and still is. We wanted to make sure that we were fighting for physicians and practices and health care institutions so that we could better serve our patients.”

Harris shared what she said was a 25-year journey to becoming the 174th president of the AMA. She recalled that it wasn’t until after she had completed her undergraduate years of college at West Virginia that she met her first African American female physician.

After earning her medical degree in 1992 and becoming a psychiatrist, Harris served in leadership roles with several psychiatric organizations including the American Psychiatric Association.

Today, Harris is a psychiatrist and recognized expert in children’s mental health and childhood trauma. She serves as an adjunct assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Morehouse School of Medicine and the Emory Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. In private practice, she consults public and private organizations on health service delivery and emerging trends in practice and health policy.

Along her journey to leading the AMA, Harris learned some lifelong lessons such as the importance of working together. The advocacy victories achieved in Washington, D.C., and at state levels don’t typically come through working in silos and without partnerships, Harris said.

Another vital learning moment in leadership came in realizing the need to embrace differing opinions.

“It is sometimes difficult if you are in the room and you’re the only one that has a disconfirming opinion,” she said. “But leadership requires us to make sure we voice appropriately, respectfully, strategically, disconfirming opinions.”

That, Harris added, includes having what can be tough discussions about issues including social and institutional inequities.

“We have to have the sometimes very difficult conversations about racism,” she said. “It is up to institutions, universities, the AMA, businesses, Fortune 100 companies, Fortune 500 companies to make sure they are having these conversations and make sure that the folks around the decision-making tables about to have these conversations are in contact with their stakeholders.”

The annual Dr. Reaner and Mr. Henry Shannon Lectureship in Minority Health creates an awareness about health disparities and provides medical professionals, students, residents and the local community information about timely issues that affect underserved and minority communities.

UMKC Researcher Awarded $3.3 Million Grant to Prevent Diabetes

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The National Institutes of Health awarded a $3.3 million grant to Jannette Berkley-Patton, professor, at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, to help improve diabetes prevention outcomes with African Americans.

“This is an extension of what we’ve been doing in the School of Medicine with Project FIT, which stands for Faith Influencing Transformation” says Berkley-Patton, Ph.D., director of the UMKC Health Equity Institute and the Community Health Research Group. With Project FIT, nearly 900 people have participated in the program and more than 200 medical, physician assistant, nursing and health studies and psychology students have been trained as FIT health coaches to help deliver the program.

At UMKC, Berkley-Patton has won other significant grants that focus on improving the health of African Americans, and each centers on health inequities and community-engaged research with African American community-based organizations, including places of worship because of their cultural importance. This new five-year grant, which starts on April 1, will include similar strategies. To date, Berkley-Patton’s work has been supported by more than $10 million in federal grants over the past 14 years.

The grant will tailor the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Diabetes Prevention Program, an evidence-based lifestyle change intervention, with 360 African American pre-diabetic participants recruited from Truman Medical Centers. The program includes 22 group sessions that take place over one year and primarily focuses on eating healthier and exercising regularly.

Preventing diabetes can help stave off other associated chronic health issues including blindness, kidney failure and heart disease.

People who participate in the CDC program aim to lose 5 to 7 percent of their body weight and exercise 150 minutes per week, which have been shown to reduce the risk of diabetes by up to 60 percent. The program has also been found to outperform pre-diabetes drugs such as Metformin.

However, African Americans typically don’t fare as well, especially women and those with low incomes. Some of the issues include barriers such as cost of the program, transportation, childcare, access to healthy food and places to exercise. These barriers are often referred to as social determinants of health.

“With the grant, we’re trying to address every barrier related to social determinants,” Berkley-Patton said. “The most successful outcomes are correlated with attending the sessions – the more sessions attended, the better the outcomes.”

The grant will support linking Truman Medical Centers patients to FIT Diabetes Prevention Program classes in their home communities via church, community center or neighborhood association settings. The program will be culturally-tailored for African American adults. The program is at no cost to the participant – typically it costs $450 per year. In addition to Truman Medical Centers, program partners include several urban Kansas City churches, Calvary Outreach Network, YMCA, Chestnut Resource Center, KC Care Health Center, Children’s Mercy and the University of Kansas.

Although the grant begins this week during a pandemic that has Americans sheltering in place and working from home, the first year of the grant is a planning year.

“With this grant, we are looking forward to further refining our current Project FIT program to have trained UMKC students and community members working side-by-side as FIT coaches,” says Carole Bowe Thompson, project director, UMKC Community Health Research Group.

The program will be launched by this time next year.

“We are looking forward to getting started,” Berkley-Patton said. “We want to show participants that here’s a premiere program designed just for you.”

Surgical dermatologist Dr. Meena Singh to give 2020 Shannon Lecture

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Meena Singh, a board-certified dermatologist and dermatologic surgeon, will present the UMKC School of Medicine’s 2020 Dr. Reaner and Mr. Henry Shannon Lecture in Minority Health on Feb. 28. A specialist in treating all types of cosmetic and medical hair loss, Singh currently serves as medical director of the KMC Hair Center in Shawnee, Kansas.

She received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed her residency training at the Mayo Clinic. She subsequently completed a surgical fellowship in Mohs Micrographic Surgery, recognized as the most effective technique for treating common skin cancer. Singh also completed a fellowship with the International Society for Hair Restoration Surgery under world-renowned surgeon Dr. Marc Avram. She has trained in all areas of hair transplantation techniques.

With a special interest in treating ethnic skin/skin of color, Singh has conducted clinical trials for laser hair stimulation. She has also studied hair transplants for both scarring and non-scarring hair loss, skin cancer in transplant patients and tissue engineering. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed dermatology journals, book chapters, as well as the New England Journal of Medicine. She recently co-authored a hair transplant textbook. Her blog articles have been published in online periodicals and she has also been featured on the cover of New York Times.

She currently serves as vice president of the Greater Kansas City chapter of the National Medical Association (NMA) and the Secretary/Treasurer of NMA Dermatology.

Jennifer Ramsey joins School of Medicine as STAHR program coordinator

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Jennifer Ramsey
Jennifer Ramsey

Jennifer Ramsey recently joined the staff at the School of Medicine as coordinator of the school’s $3.2-million Students in Training, in Academia, Health and Research (STAHR) pipeline grant program. She will support the grant leadership team and the senior program coordinator once those positions are filled.

Ramsey is a certified health education specialist. As such she brings to her role excellent skills in program support and coordination, data management, and reporting on analysis results for reports and strategic decision making.

In addition, she has worked in higher education at the UMKC School of Dentistry, Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, and in secondary health, math, and science education while living in Arizona.

Her office will be located between the dean suite and admissions. Her contact information is:  ramseyjm@umkc.edu and 816-235-6169.

The STAHR program is a two-pronged initiative to increase the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds entering healthcare programs and better prepare them for success.

Mental health expert addresses social determinants for childhood health

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The environment children are brought up in plays a large part in their eventual mental and physical well-being as they get older. Mental health expert Altha J. Stewart, M.D., president of the American Psychiatric Association, drove home that fact as she gave the annual Dr. Reaner and Mr. Henry Shannon Lecture in Minority Health on Feb. 22 at the UMKC School of Medicine.

Reaner Shannon, Ph.D., and Dr. Altha Stewart.

Stewart spoke of the social determinants of health and health disparities as they relate to children such as childhood trauma, exposure to violence in the community and other adverse childhood experiences. Those events in children’s lives, she said, are things that are driving them into the juvenile justice or child welfare systems.

“When we don’t create an environment where children can be healthy and thrive and have a sense of well-being, we consign them to these things and put them on the path to a system that is out of their home and frequently out of their community, which is not the best thing for them.”

Stewart supported her statement with statistics that showed 70 percent of children entering juvenile justice our child welfare have experienced one episode of a traumatic event that has impacted their psychological development, physical health and ability to relate to others in a socially appropriate way. She added that 30 percent of those children have a history of physical or sexual abuse and have some diagnosed learning disability.

“Remember, these are children,” she said. “They still have the ability to change. And we have the ability to positively impact them before they get to this silhouette.”

Stewart has spent decades as chief executive officer and executive director of large public mental health systems in Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan. She currently serves at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center as associate professor and chief of social and community psychiatry. She is also director of the school’s Center for Health in Justice Involved Youth.

Before going to the University of Tennessee, Stewart was the executive director of a federally funded system of care program in Memphis  for children with serious emotional disorders and their families.

An experienced health care administrator and nationally recognized expert in public sector and minority issues in mental health care, Stewart also worked as executive director of the National Leadership Council on African-American Behavioral Health.

She said that the current health care system is filled with disparities and a lack of cultural awareness. Unequal treatment, she added, points to glaring disparities that must be addressed ranging from differences in language to different understandings of illness and wellness.

“Health care is a right, not a privilege. Unless we do some of those things, we will not address the needs of man people in the population,” Stewart said.

The Shannon Lectureship takes place each February to create awareness about health disparities. It has welcomed such distinguished national speakers as former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan, as well as noted local leaders in minority health.

Noted mental health expert to present 2019 Shannon Lectureship in Minority Health

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Altha Stewart, M.D.

Mental health expert Altha J. Stewart, M.D., president of the American Psychiatric Association, will be the keynote speaker for the Dr. Reaner and Mr. Henry Shannon Lectureship in Minority Health on Feb. 22 at the School of Medicine.

She will speak on “Addressing Social Determinants of Health and Health Disparities: Implications for Children’s Mental Health and Well-being.”

Stewart has spent decades as chief executive officer and executive director of large public mental health systems in Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan. She currently serves at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center as associate professor and chief of social and community psychiatry. She is also director of the school’s Center for Health in Justice Involved Youth.

Before going to the University of Tennessee, Stewart was the executive director of a federally funded system of care program in Memphis  for children with serious emotional disorders and their families.

An experienced health care administrator and nationally recognized expert in public sector and minority issues in mental health care, Stewart also worked as executive director of the National Leadership Council on African-American Behavioral Health.

The annual Shannon Lectureship takes place each February to create awareness about health disparities. It has welcomed such distinguished national speakers as former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan, as well as noted local leaders in minority health.

Community partnerships crucial to combat obesity, Shannon lecturer says

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Daphne Bascom (right), M.D., Ph.D., talked after her lecture with an audience member. The sponsors of the lecture, Henry and Dr. Reaner Shannon, listened in.

The 2017 Dr. Reaner and Mr. Henry Shannon Lecture in Minority Health, given by Daphne Bascom, M.D., was filled with compelling statistics and fresh insights into the importance of community health efforts. It also reinforced an old saying: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Bascom, the senior vice president of community integrated health for the Greater Kansas City YMCA, focused her lecture, “Collaborating Across the Continuum to Create a Healthy Community,” on efforts to combat obesity.

“The connection between rising rates of obesity and rising medical spending is undeniable,” said Bascom, who spoke Feb. 24 at the School of Medicine.

But she also noted that investing just $10 per person in community efforts to reduce obesity could pay off in an estimated $16 billion in annual health care savings.

Some other bracing numbers:

— Annual obesity-related health care costs are estimated at $315.8 billion, with $14.1 billion related to childhood obesity.

— Businesses lose $4.3 billion a year to obesity-related absenteeism.

— Average health care costs are 42 percent higher for obese people.

— More than one in three U.S. adults are obese, and obesity rates are worse for black and Latino adults.

— Kansas had the 7th worst rate of adult obesity, and Missouri was tied for 10th.

Bascom, a board-certified specialist in otolaryngology and head and neck surgery, also related her own career experience with the need to “build a better bridge” for integrating community institutions with the health care system.

Case in point: Bascom’s efforts beyond surgery involved helping patients with follow up communication and recommendations for better fitness and nutrition. “Sometimes it worked,” she said. “But then there were the patients who couldn’t pay their electricity bills. … It was wearing and frustrating because there weren’t the community resources to help them.”

So Bascom, who received her medical degree at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, looked for broader ways to improve people’s health. She came to Cerner Corp. as chief medical officer, where she provided strategic consulting services on how to use health information technology to improve quality, safety, operations and the fiscal health of their organizations.

Now at the YMCA, Bascom is developing and promoting health partnerships and sustainable programs One area the Y is promoting? Reducing obesity—including working with families, improving access to affordable healthy food, providing safe places to be physically active, and curbing exposure to marketing of less nutritious foods.

Bascom, who herself struggled with her weight in grade school, said, “Obesity is a problem. It’s been a problem. It continues to be a problem. But it is something that can be solved.”

 

Kansas City YMCA executive to deliver annual Shannon Lecture

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Dr. Bascom

Daphne Bascom, M.D.,  will be the keynote speaker for the School of Medicine’s 12th annual Dr. Reaner and Mr. Henry Shannon Lecture in Minority Health at noon on Friday in Theater A. Bascom is the senior vice-president of community integrated health for the Greater Kansas City YMCA.

With more than 10 years’ experience as a physician executive, Bascom is an expert in clinical integration, performance improvement, and the design and deployment of health information technology systems.

Before joining the YMCA, she was vice president and chief medical officer for physician alignment at Cerner Corporation. There, she provided strategic consulting services to health-care executives on how to use health information technology to improve quality, safety, operations and the fiscal health of their organizations.

Bascom also served at Cerner as chief medical officer for worldwide consulting and chief medical information officer and was recognized as Healthcare Executive of the Year. Before working at Cerner, she was the chief clinical systems officer for the Cleveland Clinic Health System in Cleveland, Ohio.

She is a board-certified specialist in otolaryngology/head and neck surgery and has fellowship training in microvascular surgery of the head and neck. Dr. Bascom is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and completed her residency training at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. She earned her Ph.D. in physiological sciences at the University of Oxford Laboratory of Physiology in the United Kingdom.