MCH Leaders in the Southeast: Kentucky

This July we're featuring the Bluegrass state: Kentucky! We've asked three MCH leaders in Kentucky our interview questions and their answers reveal a lot about their passion for their work and their state. Our first featured leader is Emily Adkins, RN, Nurse Consultant for Family Planning and Preconception Health at the Division of Women's Health, Department for Public Health, Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

How long have you been in your current position?   

I joined the Kentucky Division of Women’s Health two years ago (in March of 2010) in my current role as nurse consultant for the Family Planning Program, as well as the Preconception Care and Folic Acid Programs.

What is your favorite thing/task/part of your work? 

I enjoy opportunities to interact with and educate the public about Preconception Care (including Family Planning and Folic Acid Supplementation) through health fairs and other venues. I feel a great sense of satisfaction when I get a phone call from someone looking for information and resources and I am able to assist them getting the help they need in their community.

What is your biggest challenge? 

As I am sure it is with everyone, time and funding are the biggest challenges. Trying best to determine how to use the time and resources available is a daunting task.

Why are you involved in/interested in Every Woman Southeast? 

I am proud to be a southern woman. I truly believe women are the heart of our communities and the health and well being of each woman is vital to the health and well being of our communities. I think we can make the biggest difference in the overall health of our children and neighborhoods by starting with the women who are the core of the families within our region.

If you had a million dollars what would you do with it?

I really wish I had a good answer, or at least a witty response – but I don’t. I am more aware than ever that money does not go as far as it seems it should. I definitely feel the money would be best used to educate all Kentuckians about the importance of women’s health and steps to take to achieve and maintain it.

MCH Leaders in the Southeast: Kentucky

Another featured leader from Kentucky is Susan Holland Brown, Kentucky’s Statewide Folic Acid Campaign Coordinator, Registered Nurse, Childbirth Educator, Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Grief Counselor, MCH Nurse Consultant, & Co-Author Kentucky Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait Toolkit. We interviewed her to find out more about her experience and interest in Every Woman Southeast.

How long have you been in your current position?

Twenty-two years in public health as an MCH nurse, childbirth educator, lactation consultant, and grief counselor; and 12 years as Kentucky’s Statewide Folic Acid Campaign Coordinator for the Kentucky’s Folic Acid Partnership (KFAP).

What is your favorite thing/task/part of your work?

I like that all of my jobs revolve around women and the families they nurture.

What is your biggest challenge?

As a nurse and public health professional I’m used to multitasking and juggling priorities but in recent years TIME is what I really miss! Like everyone there’s always too much to do and too little time to do it in… and never any down time to catch up, but friends call that job security and I call it LIFE!  

Why are you involved in/interested in Every Woman Southeast?

I spent 10 years of my nursing career working OB at Salem Hospital in Salem Oregon where I saw childbearing-aged women living a different culture than the women in the Southeast were living at the time. Everyone gave birth naturally with only a few exceptions of those women who truly needed a cesarean birth and of those who did—most gave birth via VBAC the next time around; and everyone breastfed their babies! I learned so much from that positive environment and with my youngest two daughters being born there I got to experience firsthand just how incredible and empowering natural birth can be. It was a life-changing experience that I have never forgotten and I wish women in the Southeast could experience that same type of environment!

If you had a million dollars what would you do with it? (Besides move to the mountains or beach and retire).

I’ve always said in my childbirth classes that if I ever won the lottery I would use the money to go around and bribe all the OBs to not tell women in the early stages of labor that they were in labor because of the way it affects their whole mindset when they hear those words—suddenly feeling each and every twinge when previously they were just fine and would probably have sped right through those 8 hours of early labor without skipping a beat, had nothing been said! Of course, everyone always laughs but there is sincerity in my desire. Why don’t we pay more attention to how our words and actions affect women and their pregnancy outcomes?

MCH Leaders in the Southeast: Kentucky

A native of Campbellsville, Kentucky, Connie Gayle White M.D. is a Clinical Professor in the Department for Health Behavior at the College of Public Health, University of Kentucky. She serves as a Women’s Health Consultant to the Kentucky Department of Public Health, the Kentucky Cancer Consortium and the Kentucky Maternal Child Health Institute at the University. Her teaching responsibilities involve classes in the MCHI and UK College of Medicine. She is the former Director of the Division of Women’s Health in the Department for Public Health. Prior to coming to the Division of Women’s Health Dr. White had been a practicing obstetrician/gynecologist for over 20 years in Frankfort, Kentucky. She is a graduate of Kentucky Wesleyan College with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry. She received a Master of Science in Toxicology and worked as a researcher in Teratology at the National Center for Toxicological Research in Little Rock, Arkansas. She later attended medical school at the University of Kentucky. She completed her OB-GYN residency program at the University of Louisville. She is board certified in OB/GYN by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. A special emphasis of her work was patient education and preventive medical care.

Connie was happy to answer a few questions about her work and why she is involved with Every Woman Southeast.

How long have you been in your current position? 

I practiced medicine for 20 years (OB/GYN) in Frankfort, KY before coming into Public Health. When I joined EWSE I was the Director of the Division of Women’s Health for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This involved the Title X program, teen pregnancy prevention and the Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program. After two years, I moved to my current position as a Clinical Professor in the College of Public Health at the University of Kentucky for the past year. I have the independence to participate in projects that relate to women’s health: Cervical Cancer-Free Kentucky, Kentucky Cancer Consortium, co-teaching classes and working as a Women’s Health Consultant with the Kentucky Department for Public Health.

What is your favorite thing/task/part of your work? 

Instead of dealing with women’s health issues on a one-on-one basis with an individual patient as I did in my medical practice, I now feel my work reaches across the Commonwealth to all Kentucky women. Not being limited to a defined job description, I can pick the projects that interest me and be flexible for my family (after 20 years of clinical medicine, they deserve that!).

What is your biggest challenge? 

Pacing myself to not take on too many projects so I can do my job completely and to my own personal high standards.

Why are you involved in/interested in Every Woman Southeast? 

I find the idea of pooling our best thoughts and actions to allow each state to ‘borrow shamelessly’ from each other will allow better things to happen in our Region IV. Our data shows, and I saw firsthand in clinical practice, the misery of short intraconception time, repeat high risk pregnancies and the total lack of a reproductive life plan (mainly because they didn’t understand they had that right!).

If you had a million dollars what would you do with it? 

Fund some of the desperately needy non-profits that I work with that provide critical needs for patients that fall through the cracks of our society (i.e. summer camp for children/siblings with cancer, navigation system that just provided a soft mattress for a Stage IV breast cancer patient that asked to die in comfort, etc.). I would also provide myself all the yarn I needed to knit up all the community/church projects that I want to share with others!

Life Sized Life Course Game in South Dakota

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to give a life course workshop in Pierre, South Dakota for over 230 members of the Department of Public Health. My host, Barb Hemmelmen, is a very creative woman and kind host. We tried very hard to find enough games for such a large crowd. When that didn't work, she and her 11 & 13 year old daughters made a life size board. The first hour of the workshop was a complete review of the life course theory with some examples and resources. I'm working on scripting that slide set and will make it available to Every Woman Southeast partners soon. After a break, we played the game as a group - talking about it a bit as we went. Everyone in the audience had a copy of the full board in front of them and their 'assignement' to a particular piece and what that color piece represented. When players landed on the red cards Barb read their fate. I read the green cards. Playing the game with real people was fun and brought laughter and definitely moans when people landed on certain places or received certain risk cards. When we were done with the game we asked people in the audience to get into groups of 3-4 and talk about a series of questions. We then heard back from different groups and closed with a brainstorming session for next steps for South Dakota. While we still recommend playing this game in small groups, the life sized version worked very well in this large group setting. I think we can expect to see great things coming from South Dakota!

Here is a picture of one part of the game. You can see the red and green squares.

Here is another view. We laid it out so the players walked across the front of the room.

These are the wonderful "game pieces" - all supervisors from the South Dakota Dept of Public Health.
Barb - the designer and mastermind is in the blue jacket.

The "death scene" of the game - finding out everyone's fate.

EWSE Meeting Reflections: Adaptive Leadership

By Carol Brady, Executive Director of the Northeast Florida Healthy Start Coalition, Inc.

What a great kick-off for the Kellogg grant and Every Woman Southeast! There are so many opportunities and synergies with other initiatives focusing on poor outcomes among women and children in our region -- ASTHO, AMCHP HRSA, CDC Consumer Work Group. Our leadership group will be an important vehicle for implementing strategies within and across our states. The concepts of “adaptive leadership” (loved Sterling Freeman, the meeting facilitator!) and “leading from the middle” really resonated with participants. We have momentum!

Check out some pictures from the meeting below!

Some EWSE coalition members take a tour of  UNC-Chapel Hill after the meeting on May 22.

One of the facilitated activities from Sterling Freeman.

Megan Lewis from RTI presenting an update from the National Initiative on Preconception Health and Health Care Consumer Work Group.

Lori Reeves (Florida) and Sarah Verbiest (North Carolina) lead a group brainstorming session.

EWSE Meeting Reflections: Meeting of the Minds!

By Monica Murphy, MPH, Public Health Prevention Specialist, Metro Public Health Department

Attending the EWSE Regional Meeting May 22-23, 2012, was a great experience. It was truly “a meeting of the minds!” Representatives from each of the 9 member states were in attendance and full of energy and enthusiasm. The two day meeting was jammed packed with discussions about the vision, identity and direction of EWSE and the much anticipated launching of the W.K. Kellogg grant. Everyone at the table shared their expertise, practical wisdom, and hopes for the grant project and the overall work of EWSE.

As a new EWSE team member from Nashville, TN, this meeting was an opportunity to get an in-depth understanding of the mission and goals of EWSE and to be a part of the strategic planning process as the collaborative prepares to move into a new phase. As an emerging public health leader, I have learned that improving the health of our communities is not a one man or woman job. The work that we do in our communities and states will not reach its full potential nor have maximum impact without the vision for new approaches that include collaboration, systems thinking, and adaptive leadership strategies. The EWSE collaborative is one example of a multi-state effort to improve the health of all women in the Southeast regardless of race, place, or circumstance.

EWSE Meeting Reflections: A Student's Perspective

By Jessye Brick, Graduate Student at the UNC School of Public Health

I chose to study public health because I was shocked that the United States, despite having higher health expenditures, lags behind most other developed countries in birth outcomes. Throughout my first year of courses we frequently discussed why this may be and how the lifecourse model offers a new way of understanding and responding to the determinants of health. When Sarah first told me about Every Woman Southeast, I was eager to see how public health leaders were implementing the model. I believe that preconception health is one of the keys to promoting women’s health and it was incredibly exciting to have the opportunity to take part in this groundbreaking event.

The first thing that struck me was the wealth of diversity among the participants as far as age and experience. I loved hearing about everyone’s work and interest in Every Woman Southeast. As I saw nurses work with epidemiologists and nonprofit organizations work with government employees, I thought “this is what public health is all about!” Every participant was committed to learning from one another and that included me! I was encouraged to participate in every session and many people were interested in my opinions and career goals. The group was full of lifelong learners who continuously strive to improve their efforts. They recognized and embraced the fact that doing so may require them to move out of their comfort zone at times.

The existing programs in each state and the variety of ways that states have attempted to improve preconception health care also impressed me. South Carolina recently held a video competition for college students to develop preconception health materials while Florida is developing a request for proposals to improve the quality of the postpartum visit. Despite different focuses and approaches, many states identified similar challenges, including a disconnect between stakeholders fueled by competition for limited funds. It quickly became clear why a group like Every Woman Southeast is necessary. By working together we can learn from each other’s successes and failures, while developing new approaches to overcoming common barriers.