Monique Trice, 24, is a University of Louisville School of Dentistry student who will complete her studies in 2015. Trice completed the Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP) in 2008 at the University of Louisville site. Started in 1988, SMDEP (formerly known as the Minority Medical Education Program and Summer Medical and Education Program), is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation–sponsored program with more than 21,000 alumni. Today, SMDEP sponsors 12 sites, with each accepting up to 80 students per summer session. This is part of a series of posts looking at diversity in the health care workforce.

Diversity is more than ethnicity. It also includes geography, perspective, and more. I was raised in Enterprise, Ala., which is in Coffee County. The community’s demographic and geographic makeup set the stage for an oral health care crisis. Here’s how:

• Enterprise is a community of 27,000 and just 15 licensed general dentists, three Medicaid dental providers, and zero licensed pediatric dentists to service Coffee County, a population of 51,000. In 2011, Alabama’s Office of Primary Care and Rural Health reported that 65 of the state’s 67 counties were designated as dental health shortage areas for low-income populations.
• According to this data, more than 260 additional dentists would be needed to bridge gaps and fully meet the need. For some residents, time, resources, and distance figure into the equation, putting dental care out of reach. In some rural communities, an hour’s drive is required to access dental services.
• Lack of affordable public transportation creates often-insurmountable barriers to accessing dental care.

Growing up in a single-parent household, my siblings and I experienced gaps in dental care. Fortunately, we never suffered from an untreated cavity from poor oral health care, but many low-income, underserved children and adults are not so lucky.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows and grantees. Some recent examples:

Susan B. Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, RWJF senior adviser for nursing, spoke this month at the Oregon Center for Nursing conference on the future of nursing leadership, according to The Lund Report. “We need to be keeping more data, recording our expertise and speaking up for ourselves so when people say quality of care, they will also say, quality of nursing,” she said.

Alicia I. Arbaje, MD, MPH, an alumna of the RWJF Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program and the RWJF Clinical Scholars program, was a guest on NBC Nightly News discussing the need for older adults to live in “dynamic environments” like college towns, where they can stay physically active and socially engaged. See the clips here and here.

A white paper co-authored by RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research recipient Kathleen Sutcliffe, PhD, “breaks down the behaviors of managers who are the best at anticipating, containing, and repairing catastrophes,” Business Insider reports. Among those behaviors: they overcome cognitive biases and update their beliefs, and they don't ignore small problems until they snowball into larger ones.

Science Magazine reports on research by RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research alumnus Rashawn Ray, PhD, that finds women of color often encounter an unwelcoming environment in graduate school, and have a particularly hard time finding primary mentors who share their experiences and can provide guidance.

The American Indian Physicians and Association of American Medical Colleges will host a Cross Cultural Medicine Workshop, March 1-3 in Washington, D.C. The workshop is designed to provide physicians, faculty, medical students, health care professionals, and others with a greater understanding of Western and Traditional Medicine in order to enhance their cultural competence.

Participants will learn to identify strategies to improve cultural competency and communication between American Indian/Alaska Native patients and health care professionals, and learn about the role of traditional healers and the American Indian/Alaska Native approaches to healing and health.

The Association of American Medical Colleges provides technical assistance to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Summer Medical and Dental Education Program.

Learn more and register here.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows and grantees. Some recent examples:

The Baltimore Times reports on the Tour for Diversity in Medicine, founded in part by RWJF Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP) alumnus Alden Landry, MD, MPH. Several weeks each year, the Tour visits college campuses across the country to promote careers in the health professions to students from groups underrepresented in higher education. Read more about the Tour for Diversity here and here.

Jason Karlawish, MD, recipient of an RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research, spoke to the Philadelphia Inquirer about tests for Alzheimer’s disease. Read posts Karlawish wrote for the RWJF Human Capital Blog about the disease and the challenges associated with early diagnosis.

Pharmacy Times reports on a perspective piece in the New England Journal of Medicine, co-authored by Investigator Award recipient Aaron Kesselheim, MD, JD, MPH. It addresses concerns about a proposal to increase liability for generic drug manufacturers for adverse reactions. Read a post Kesselheim wrote for the RWJF Human Capital Blog about pharmaceutical industry marketing to medical students.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows and grantees. Some recent examples:

A study by Deidra Crews, MD, ScM, FASN, an alumna of the RWJF Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program, finds that poor nutrition is strongly associated with kidney disease in low-income individuals. Health Day, Science Daily and Medical XPress are among the outlets to report on the findings.

WHYY interviewed RWJF Health & Society Scholars alumna Carolyn Cannuscio, ScD, ScM, about the “built environment” and its impact on health, as well as her personal connection to the field.

The Afro-American Newspapers wrote about the Tour for Diversity in Medicine, run in part by RWJF Summer Medical and Dental Education Program alumnus Alden Landry, MD, MPH. The Tour travels with mentors to college campuses around the country to promote health professions to underrepresented students. Read more about the Tour for Diversity here and here.

Julie Fairman, PhD, FAAN, RN, gave comments to Nurse.com for an article on the history of the nursing profession. Fairman says that nursing education evolved “very haphazardly.” She is the recipient of an RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research.

Nurse.com also spoke with RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows alumnae Jane Kirschling, DNS, RN, FAAN, and Susan Bakewell-Sachs, RN, PhD, PNP-BC, about initiatives across the country to recruit and retain nurse faculty. Bakewell-Sachs is also program director of the New Jersey Nursing Initiative, a program of RWJF and the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

Alden M. Landry, MD, MPH and Kameron Leigh Matthews, MD, JD are  co-directors of Tour for Diversity in Medicine, a grassroots effort to educate, inspire, and cultivate future minority physicians. Landry, 31, is an emergency medicine physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and Matthews, 33, and is the medical director for a Chicago-based family health clinic. Landry is an alumnus of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP), formerly the Minority Medical Education Program.

Alden Landry reflects on the second Tour for Diversity which ended last week:

Dr Matthews and I created the Tour for Diversity in Medicine (T4D) to reach out to students in their comfort zones and show them that they could be successful and become health care providers. We enlisted the help of our friends and colleagues to come along with us on the tour as Mentors, to lead lectures, workshops and interactive sessions and motivate the next generation of minority physicians. The Mentors range from pre-health advisors to medical and dental students as well as physicians and dentists in practice. More importantly, they share their personal stories with students. We’ve found this to be one of the most valuable parts of the tour—giving a human face to what can sometimes seem like an unattainable profession.

The tour was different than our earlier, February tour because we had a broader mix of host institutions. Host institutions ranged from small historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to larger institutions. We visited schools in rural settings as well as large cities. Each institution was as unique as were the students who attended and the stories we heard.

There wasn't just one stop that was memorable. All of the stops were filled with amazing groups of students hungry for more knowledge about careers in medicine and dentistry.

The following are among the honors received recently by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) scholars, fellows and grantees.

Several RWJF scholars were named to the 2012 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows. They include: RWJF Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research recipients Amy Finkelstein, PhD, MPhil, and Joseph Fins, MD; RWJF Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program alumni Griffin Rodgers, MD, MACP, and Emery Brown, MD, PhD; and RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research alumnus Vincent Hutchings, PhD.

Amy Finkelstein was also named the 2012 recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal in economics, regarded as economics’ most prestigious award. Read an RWJF Human Capital Blog post by Finkelstein.

Debra Ann Toney, PhD, MS, BSN, FAAN, an alumna of the RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows program, is one of 22 Americans selected by Coca-Cola to carry the Olympic Flame in the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay. The torchbearers will carry the flame in and around Oxford, England, July 9 to 11 before the opening ceremony on July 27.

This is the first in a series of blog posts introducing programs that are part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Human Capital Portfolio. Funded by RWJF, the Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP) offers intensive and personalized medical and dental school preparation to freshman and sophomore college students from underrepresented groups and disadvantaged backgrounds. The goal is to help them overcome barriers to medical or dental school.

Meet 26-year-old Carmen Young, a May 2012 graduate of the University of Louisville, School of Medicine who begins her obstetrics and gynecology residency at St. Mary’s Hospital in St. Louis this summer. Her 8th grade commitment—from dream to destination—has been realized with a boost from the Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP). Carmen pledges to build a practice that improves outcomes for Black mothers and their babies.

Meet Adrienne Perry, 23, whose eyes were opened to the vast oral health problems faced by adults and children during a trip to Guatemala. That trip, coupled with six weeks of intensive classes through SMDEP, awakened the third-year Howard University School of Dentistry student to similar oral health gaps faced by people in urban communities surrounding her campus in Washington, D.C. When she gets her degree, this Conyers, Georgia native plans to address the oral health crisis among underserved communities both here and abroad. Today, just 12 percent of the nation’s dentists are from minority populations.

And meet Drew Gehring, 24, from rural Garrison, North Dakota. He also participated in SMDEP and was inspired to dive into research probing the causes of colon cancer, hoping to contribute to curing the disease.

SMDEP gave these and other students from economically disadvantaged or medically underserved communities a jumpstart to open educational opportunities and clear career paths to medicine or dentistry. They are among the more than 20,000 alumni of the program.

Around the country, the news media is covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation scholars, fellows and grantees. Here are some examples.

“Louisville [Kentucky] is going high-tech to try to figure out what’s behind the city’s problem with asthma,” the Courier-Journal reports. The city will use technology developed by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Health & Society Scholars alumnus David Van Sickle, PhD, MA, that uses global-positioning technology to capture where and when asthma patients use their inhalers. Read a Human Capital Blog Q&A with Van Sickle on his work and upcoming projects.

Lisa Berkman, PhD, a Health & Society Scholars program site director at Harvard University, spoke to U.S. News & World Report about “Why Good Friends Make You Happy.”

Lucy Marion, PhD, RN, FAAN, an alumna of the RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows program and dean of Georgia Health Sciences University (GHSU) College of Nursing, was recently interviewed by the Augusta Chronicle for two separate articles. She discussed the merger of the nursing programs at GHSU and Augusta State University, and the work of the Greater Augusta Healthcare Network, which she helped found.

"Just about everyone now has heard of someone they know who's done something online that they wish they hadn't done,” RWJF Clinical Scholars alumnus Ryan Greysen, MD, MA, told Health Day. Greysen is the lead author of a study that examined the pervasiveness of physician misconduct online and the repercussions of those actions. “I think the message is that medical professionals are responsible for what they put online—not only responsible for the information, but accountable,” he said.

The Pine Journal (Cloquet, Minn.) spoke to Executive Nurse Fellow Julie Myhre, MS, BA, RN, PHN, about a local initiative to provide reduced-cost dental services for underserved children. Myhre, who is part of the Northeast Minnesota Oral Health Project, said the lack of adequate dental care for children has reached an “epidemic level.”

Around the country, the news media is covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation scholars, fellows and grantees. Here are some examples.

In a story about the 75th anniversary of the College of Nursing at Montana State University, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle cites research being conducted by two Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Nurse Faculty Scholars who are faculty at the University: Laura Larsson, PhD, MPH, RN, and Sandra Kuntz, PhD, RN. Larsson is researching ways to reduce radon exposure among low-income people, and Kuntz is researching mercury exposure on two Indian reservations. Read a post Larsson wrote for the RWJF Human Capital Blog.

Medical News Today reports on a study by RWJF Clinical Scholars program alumna Nazleen Bharmal, MD, MPP, which examined racial disparities and life expectancy by state. Bharmal’s study was published in a special “Bridging the Gap between Research and Health Policy” edition of Health Services Research. The issue features studies by current Clinical Scholars and alumni. Read a post Bharmal wrote for the RWJF Human Capital Blog. Learn more about the special issue of Health Services Research.

WYPR-FM spoke to RWJF Community Health Leader Joanne Goldblum about the newly-formed National Diaper Bank Network, which will distribute 20 million diapers donated by Huggies manufacturer Kimberly-Clark to local diaper banks across the country. Goldblum founded the New Haven Diaper Bank in Connecticut when she realized that low-income families could not receive diapers through federal assistance programs like food stamps.

Elizabeth Wildsmith, PhD, spoke to Scripps Howard News Service and the Honolulu Civil Beat about a study by Child Trends finding that the majority of women under 30 in the United States with children are not married. Wildsmith is a research scientist with Child Trends and an alumna of the RWJF Health & Society Scholars program. The New York Times also reported on the group’s findings.