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PRESIDENT FLEMING RETURNS FROM KENYA April – Recently home from a six month volunteer assignment in Mutomo, Kenya, Reede Scholar, Inc. President, Mary Fleming, had little idea of what living in a small remote village would be like. She soon learned and adapted to not having many of the luxuries we take for granted in the states. “The last six months, I have spent volunteering in Mutomo, Kenya at the Our Lady of Lourdes, Mutomo Mission Hospital. It was an amazing adventure!” exclaimed Fleming. She went on to say, “This has been one of the most rewarding professional experiences of my career. I will miss my co-workers, the staff and the patients there as I transition back to my work here at home.” Fleming returns to a busy Reede Scholars calendar, including the first Leadership Retreat, in Atlanta, Georgia, April 13-15.
APRIL 13TH PROCLAIMED DR. JOSEPH BETANCOURT DAY
Dr. Betancourt is the founder and director of the Disparities Solutions Center (DSC), Senior Scientist at the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a practicing Internal Medicine physician. Betancourt is a 1998 Mongan Commonwealth Fund-Harvard University Fellow. He is also the founder and leader of Quality Interactions, an industry-leading company that focuses on training in cross-cultural communication for health care professionals. | MARK YOUR CALENDARMAY 1, 2018 MAY 2, 2018 MAY 2 – 4, 2018 JUNE 24 – 26, 2018 AUGUST 11 – 15, 2018 NOVEMBER 10 – 14, 2018 San Diego, California
INSIDE THIS ISSUE 1) President’s Corner 2) Dr. Brian Swann Promoted to Assistant Professor 3) Dr. Joseph Betancourt Day Proclaimed 4) Donald Warne, MD, MPH named Assistant Dean 5) First Annual Reede Scholars Leadership Retreat 6) 9th Annual Health Equity Symposium 7) From the Bronx to El Salvador, health inequity has no borders 8) J. Nwando Olayiwola featured in Lancet |
April – Boston Mayor, Martin J. Walsh proclaimed April 13, 2018, Dr. Joseph Betancourt Day in the City of Boston, MA. 
PRESIDENT’S CORNER Greetings Scholars! Welcome to REEDE NEWS. The new format will highlight and archive the accomplishments of you, the Reede Scholars. We hope you will enjoy reading and contributing. We know many of you are achieving amazing successes; by sharing your accomplishments, we can record your accomplishments for historical documentation and inspire others to harness the power within! Since our business meeting in May of last year, it has been a very busy time. Following the success of the oral health integration symposium, we took a brief summer break before diving into our 2018, and 9th symposium. The theme for this year’s symposium is, “Oral Health and Equity: Integration in Action”. An outstanding lineup of speakers have committed to the symposium. We expect that the presentations will provide specific practical and useful information to improve patient outcomes. At the conclusion of this year’s meeting, we will be moving into our 10th Anniversary year. We hope to have even greater participation in order to make next year our most phenomenal year yet! The first Reede Scholars, Inc. Leadership Retreat was held April 13-15, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. Ten RS participated in person and twenty-two provided input via the pre-retreat survey. Ralph Fuccillo, of Cambridge Concord, LLC, and the first Reede Scholar Vision Award recipient, facilitated. An executive summary will be distributed before the annual meeting. Thank you to all who have been instrumental in making this year a success. We have been diligent in solidifying our foundation as an organization so that we can continue to grow our brand and broaden our reach. The past couple of years have underscored the need to continue to strive for health equity and social justice. The intellectual capital embodied among the Reede Scholars makes us the ideal leaders to move the needle even further. As a reminder, annual dues are $100. There is a donate link on the home page. You can mail your check to the office, ATTN: Kavitha Prakash. 164 Longwood Ave., 2nd floor, Boston, MA 02115. Welcome 2018 Mongan-Commonwealth Fund-Harvard University Fellows! - Mary E. Fleming, MD, MPH, FACOG | Brian J. Swann, DDS, MPH promoted to Assistant Professor of Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology Harvard School of Dental Medicine
Additionally, as co-Director of the Oral Physician Program within the CHA GPR, he teaches and mentors residents on how to integrate oral health into the scope of primary care – a philosophy he also brings into the pre-doctoral curriculum through the first year HMS Practice of Medicine course. At CHA, he spearheaded an innovative patient care model, the group visit model, for patients with denture needs – group visits facilitated by GPR residents and HSDM pre-doctoral students. Furthermore, he has been committed to the diversity and inclusion initiatives at HMS/ HSDM. In 2015, he was awarded the HMS Harold Amos Faculty Diversity Award for his significant contributions within the HMS and HSDM communities.
Internationally, Dr. Swann is currently working in Uganda and Congo, by sending dental supplies to Ethiopian Dental Association, and collaborated with New York University to bring dental chairs to the newly created dental schools in Addis Ababa and Jima University. He routinely accompanies pre-doctoral dental students to Haiti and other Caribbean Island to provide much needed dental care.
9th Annual Reede Scholars Health Equity Symposium to focus on integrated care The theme for our 2018 Health Equity Symposium is “Oral health & Equity: Integration in Action”. This year’s symposium builds on the 2017 program, which explored the history of integrated primary care and oral health care. An exciting line-up of speakers will share their experiences and lessons learned from practicing the integrated model of care. The symposium is May 3, 2018 at 3:00 pm in the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center, Harvard University Campus. |
Dr. Swann serves in a dual role as an HSDM faculty member and Chief of Oral Health at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) Windsor St. Clinic. In serving his dual role, he provides chairside clinical teaching and supervision of GPR residents at CHA and instruction to HSDM pre-doctoral students. 
For over thirty years, Dr. Swann served the communities of San Jose and Menlo Park, California practicing general family dentistry. Before that, he was Director of the Charles Drew Dental Center in East Palo Alto, a low-income community-based dental clinic. During that tenure, he pioneered a vocational, motivational, and preventive dental/medical program in the Ravenswood City School District. Dr. Donald Warne Promoted to Assistant Dean at North Dakota State University
Donald Warne, MD, MPH was recently promoted to the position of Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at North Dakota State University. Don previously served as Chair, Department of Public Health, Professor, and Mary J. Berg Distinguished Professorship in Women’s Health at NDSU. He continues to serve as the Senior Policy Advisor to the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board. In addition, he is an adjunct clinical professor at the Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law where he taught American Indian Health Policy.
Dr. Warne is a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe from Pine Ridge, South Dakota and comes from a long line of traditional healers and medicine men. He received his MD from Stanford University in 1995 and his Master of Public Health from Harvard University as a Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellow in Minority Health Policy in 2002. Warne is a Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE), and he is a Diplomate of both the American Board of Family Practice and the American Board of Medical Acupuncture. In addition to Minority Health Policy, he completed a Fellowship in Alternative Medicine from the Arizona Center for Health and Medicine. His distinguish career includes an induction into Stanford Hall of Fame in 2016.
What is Health Equity?
May 1, 2017 Publisher: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Author(s): Braveman P, Arkin E, Orleans T, Proctor D, and Plough A
While the term health equity is used widely, a common understanding of what it means is lacking. In a report designed to increase consensus around meaning of health equity, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) provides the following definition: “Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be healthier. This requires removing obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination, and their consequences, including powerlessness and lack of access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education and housing, safe environments, and health care.”
The definitional concepts presented in the report are based on widely recognized ethical and human rights principles and supported by knowledge from health sciences.
Consensus around definitions for an issue such as health equity can help bridge divides and foster productive dialogue among diverse stakeholder groups. Conversely, a lack of clarity can lead to detours, and pose a barrier to effective engagement and action.
Also included in the report are examples of specific terms related to health equity that often arise in discussions around the concept.
KEY FINDINGS:
• Identify important health disparities. Many disparities in health are rooted in inequities in the opportunities and resources needed to be healthier. The determinants of health include living and working conditions, education, income, neighborhood characteristic, social inclusion, and medical care. An increase in opportunities to be healthier will benefit everyone but more focus should be placed on groups that have been excluded or marginalized in the past.
• Change and implement policies, laws, systems, environments, and practices to reduce inequities in the opportunities and resources needed to be healthier. Eliminate the unfair individual and institutional social conditions that give rise to the inequities.
• Evaluate and monitor efforts using short-and long-term measures as it may take decades or generations to reduce some health disparities. In order not to underestimate the size of the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged, disadvantaged groups should not be compared to the general population but to advantaged groups.
• Reassess strategies in light of process and outcomes and plan next steps. Actively engage those most affected by disparities in the identification, design, implementation, and evaluation of promising solutions.
Reprinted from: https://www.rwjf.org/en/ library/research/2017/05/what-is-health-equity-.html?cid=xtw_rwjf_unpd_ini:nmhm_ dte:20180409
FROM THE BRONX TO EL SALVADOR, HEALTH INEQUITY HAS NO BORDERS
By Dr. Seiji Hayashi, Director of Medicine at the Human Diagnosis Project From a community health center in the Bronx to a rural village in El Salvador, I’ve seen firsthand how a lack of access to medical care can drastically transform individual lives and entire communities. My career has been in service of answering one single question: “how can we bridge the gap in health care access in the US and around the world?” “When I heard about the Human Diagnosis Project (Human Dx), I saw how it had the potential to be a game-changer in global health. Its technology — which is already being used in over 80 countries — combines the collective insights of doctors with machine learning algorithms in one open system to help give patients access to the high-quality care they deserve.” As a practicing family physician at a community health center in Washington, D.C., I often use Human Dx to ask other doctors questions about complex patient cases. Many of our patients are uninsured, and must make the agonizing choice between paying out-of-pocket for an expensive visit to see a specialist or continuing to leave their condition untreated. On World Health Day, I am inspired to continue building the Human Diagnosis Project with our global community and using it to help patients like mine all around the world. Together, we can create a more inclusive, sustainable, and open future of medicine for all. Editor’s note: This editorial first appeared in the MEDIUM, April 5, 2018, a publication of the Human Diagnosis Project. A YouTube video of Dr. Hayashi is available at: https://medium.com/@humandx/fromthe-%20bronx-to-el-salvador-healthcare-inequality-has-noborders-%2056454b8784ae | REEDE SCHOLARS LEADERSHIP RETREAT - AN EYE- OPENER
Reede Scholars Leadership Retreat held in Atlanta, Georgia, April 13 – 15, 2018 This past weekend, several Scholars gathered for our First Annual Leadership Retreat. The Leadership Retreat served to review our successes, strengthen our weaknesses, and strategize for our future growth. Led by Ralph Fuccillo, a long time supporter of the fellowship, and superb facilitator, we explored our history as an organization and the legacy we plan to leave.
Participants were: Mary Fleming, Nicole del Castillo, Kavitha Prakash, D’Nyce Williams, Elna Nagasako, Preeta Chidambaran, Deonza Thymes, Donald Warne, Cynthia Hodge, and Shelia Roundtree. It was a productive and time well spent.
A tentative date for the next Leadership Retreat was set for March 29 – 31, 2019.
Point of View | Dismantling institutional discrimination in healthcare by empowering minority women professionals
 On March 8th, each year, for more than a century, International Woman’s Day is celebrated. It is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political.1 A strong advocate supporting minority professional women, Nwando is a national speaker and author. Her blog can be read at: http://usa.thelancet.%20com/blog/2018-03-07-point-view-dismantling-%20institutional-discrimination-healthcare-%20empowering-minority 1. http://www.un.org/en/events/womensday/history. shtml |
We updated our mission, to more succinctly reflect our purpose for incorporating. Ralph challenged the group to think about ‘who we are’, ‘why we formed Reede Scholars’, ‘who our target audience is’, and ‘what changes we envision’. The Executive Summary will be presented and discussed at the Post-Retreat meeting on Wednesday, May 2, at 10:00 am. 
J. Nwando Olayiwola, MD, MPH, FAAFP, CEO & Founder, Inspire Health Solutions, LLC & Founder, Assoc. of Minority Women Professionals was the featured Special Guest Blogger in the March issue of Lancet, during International Woman’s Day.