Beyond the Clinic: Building a Medical School for Underserved Communities

A good doctor trapped inside a bad healthcare system is still delivering bad healthcare. When we look at regions like the Mississippi Delta, staggering health disparities and preventable chronic illnesses aren't just medical failures—they are structural ones. Relying solely on clinical interventions ignores the harsh reality that where a person lives, learns, works, and buys their groceries dictates their lifespan far more than an annual checkup ever could. We sit down with Dr. Brookshield Laurent, Associate Dean of Population and Public Health at NYITCOM at Arkansas State University, to explore why medical education must fundamentally shift to address the ecosystems surrounding the patient.

We get into the daily realities of training physicians in one of the most medically underserved areas of the country and why population health is the missing link in modern medical training. Dr. Laurent breaks down the specific social determinants of health driving regional disparities and explains how her team is actively tackling Arkansas's grim maternal mortality rate through peer-to-peer mentoring and comprehensive care ecosystems. The conversation highlights her overarching philosophy that physicians must see themselves not just as clinical providers, but as community leaders and health policy advocates who are willing to leverage their influence to fix a fragmented system.

Real empathy isn't something you can simply read about in a textbook; it has to be exercised like a muscle through direct proximity to a community's struggles. We discuss the logistical hurdles and eye-opening realities of the school's immersion programs—from sending students on the Delta Care-A-Van mobile health unit to assigning them to navigate rural food deserts on a strict budget during the grocery store nutrition exercise. Viewers will walk away with a deeper understanding of how socioeconomics impacts physical health, the necessity of building healthcare coordination networks that go beyond simple patient education, and a renewed perspective on what it actually takes to create long-term well-being in underserved populations.

If you care about population health, health equity, and the future of medical education, you’ll get a lot from this. Please make sure to subscribe and share this episode with anyone interested in transforming community healthcare. How much do you think community infrastructure and local resources impact your own daily health habits?

@arkansasstatemedianetwork.com.

0:00 - Introduction to Population and Public Health
3:41 - The Social Determinants of Health: Why Your Zip Code Matters
11:15 - Real-World Empathy: The Grocery Store Exercise
17:39 - Hands-On Experience: Delivering Care with the Delta Care-A-Van
22:56 - Why Doctors Need to Be at the Health Policy Table
27:52 - Tackling the Maternal Health Crisis in Arkansas

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to the More Than a Medical School podcast on the Arkansas State Media Network. I'm Casey Pierce. I'm the Director of External Relations and Marketing for NYITCOM at A State. We are a medical school that operates on the Arkansas State University campus in partnership with A State. And the goal of this podcast is just to tell people about our medical school. We call it More Than a Medical School because we feel like we do things a little bit different, and that's intentional. We've told you about a few of those characteristics that make us a little bit unique. And today we're really going to dive into one of those. Our medical school was founded in one of the most medically underserved parts of the country. And we're training physicians to practice in places where the healthcare needs and health outcomes are significant. When we do that, when we train students, we cater to those needs by placing a huge emphasis on population and public health. So today I'm pleased to be joined by our associate dean of population and public health, Dr. Brookshield Laurent. She is a board-certified osteopathic family medicine physician, and she has a particular interest and expertise in population and public health. So, Dr. Laurent, thanks for joining me today.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Thank you for having me, Casey. I've been looking forward to this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

So for starters, just tell me a little bit about who you are, where you're from, your background, and what brought you into medicine.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Well, as you mentioned before, um, I'm an osteopathic family medicine physician. Um I'm originally from the northeast part of the country, uh, New Jersey. I did my training there at Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine and my residency training at Christianic care in family medicine. Um, I joined NYIT close to 13 years ago on the Long Island campus. And when I learned about the opportunity of starting our site 10 years ago and I began to engage with our senior leadership, I began to see clearly the impact that this school could have, uh specifically in this region, um, and that our contributions really can make a difference on the health outcomes uh in this in the Mississippi Delta.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

So before we get into population health education, let's define that term. I know you do that regularly. You've got a really good, well-packaged definition of population health. What is population health?

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Yes. Population health is about improving the health and well-being of groups of people or communities instead of just treating a disease of one person. So, for example, population health helps us understand why there are groups of people or communities that are more healthier or less healthier than others. They are factors uh that contribute to that reality. We have a significant amount of data to show that uh there are conditions where we live, learn, work, play, pray, and grow are the major drivers for how we feel and our well-being and many other health indicators, like how long we live, our likelihood of having an illness or a disease, um, what it's called, it's called the social determinants of health. And not only do we understand or try to understand these factors a little bit better of how they work amongst each other and how they affect groups of people or communities, uh, we also create interventions to help make uh these communities healthier or prevent them from becoming ill. Uh so unfortunately, you know, we're in a region in the Mississippi Delta that has significant health, what we call health disparities, meaning when you compare health outcomes in terms of chronic illnesses, uh, cancer, life expectancy, when you compare this region compared to other regions in the country, uh, this area have significant challenges compared to other parts of this country. So a tool like population health helps us understand or help us to get some ideas of to why that might be happening, but also what are some interventions that we can um um apply to help prevent illness, but also when people are ill, get them healthy and get them and get them well. The people groups and communities can be defined by many different things. It can be defined by your zip code, it can be defined by your state, it can be defined by your occupation, it can be defined by uh your age or age range, your sex, gender, race, ethnicity. And we look at these demographics to better understand what are the patterns in the communities and the space that these individuals or groups of people live in that are contributing to health outcomes. And we think it's really important that our our students, as they're getting their training, understand the lived experiences about their patients so that they're not only providing a medical management plan for the illness, but they're doing so keeping in mind where their patients live. And so they're very much going to be trained about how to be intentional to incorporate that in the management of their care of the patient's care.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Because where they live impacts their, I've heard you say these things over and over again. There's so much outside the clinic that determines how healthy a person is, transportation, education, access to fresh uh fruits and vegetables. So the infrastructure, there's so many of these things that factor into not how healthy or well a person wants to be, but how capable they are of living a healthy lifestyle is that so what you're um what you're alluding to is what we what I mentioned before were the social determinants of health, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Our environment uh can either give us great access to healthy food or not. Our environment can give us access to health care or not, our socioeconomic uh status or our ability to have economic stability, um, our ability to have employment, all these things really are driving health outcomes more so than what happens in the clinical and the hospital setting. Having a doctor is really important, having healthcare professionals are really important, but those aren't, that isn't the main driver for health outcomes. And so in order for us to really provide thoughtful, holistic care, we have to think about the environments that our patients live in. We have to take into account whether the spaces where we're telling them to exercise are safe. Uh, we have to take into account that our our children, when they're in school, that they are getting the best education and they're ready to receive the education. All these things really have to come into play to ensure that they have a higher chance of having great health opportunity and better health outcomes.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

So it becomes really important for our students to understand as we're encouraging them to go practice in these underserved areas, you're gonna have a lot of challenges, you're, but also opportunity, but you have to understand how all this works together.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Our intentionality in our curriculum and the training of our students, I would say is very unique compared to other medical students because we are centering the patient's lived experiences while we're understanding what's happening within the body itself. We're also showing our students what's happening around the body in the environment that they live. And really, there's you really can't provide the best care without understanding where our patients live. And so NYIT uh has a unique approach in our curriculum that's really just uh, I believe allows us to stand out amongst most schools because of our intentionality around centering our patients-lived experiences in the communities that they live in. But also it allows our students, because once you acquire the knowledge of why it's happening, you now have to do something about it. And so, with that, our training um provides leadership skills to our students. I believe every student that will be graduating from NYTCOM at Arkansas State University will gain leadership skill. They will be osteopathic leaders in their community to bring different sectors at the table, uh, share the vision of health and wellness, and have every sector buy into that vision to say, you know, I don't need a medical degree to be a healer in my community. And there's something I can do in my sector to contribute to the health and well-being of my neighbor. And so when you're engaging with people in a food system, whether you're a producer or a consumer, whether you're in education, whether you're in transportation, every one of those sectors contribute to health opportunities. Uh, and we want to train our, we are training our students to be able to convene people uh to create a vision of health and wellness and get buy-in from every sector to say, yeah, I want to contribute to the health and my well-being. And our students will have the, we'll have the building blocks to create this vision of health for communities.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

And you founded the Delta Population Health Institute. We often will call that the DPHI often, um, to specifically operate these programs, serve as the engagement arm. And that's really twofold. There is that health outreach, health education mission that our medical school um planted our flag with in Northeast Arkansas, specifically in the Delta. So it's benefiting those communities where we're going into, but at the same time, benefiting our students by giving them a more well-rounded education.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Absolutely. So there are many um, there are many opportunities that the Delta Population Health Institute provides. So, one, it does allow our medical school to serve as what we call an intermediary in our communities. Uh, we are able to, what that means is that we're able to bring people together to talk about these larger issues that we have to address. So, not one, not one institution can address this issue. You really need to have the commitment and a buy-in from every stakeholder within the community. And so NYIT, I believe, has um garnered trust and in and keep the trust of our community partners uh to help facilitate these very difficult conversations. And the beauty of this is that our students, while we're doing this in real time to not only provide direct health care services and preventive health care services in places that may be hard to reach, we're also helping supporting in capacity building for our community members to be able to feel comfortable to address these issues with whatever uh resources that they have. And at the same time, our medical students are able to participate in these conversations. They're able to, once they get the skills, support the facilitation of these conversations. They're able to learn what it means to identify stakeholders, identify their priorities, translate what value means when they're with their buy-in into this vision of health of their community, and then have skills or either get those people with the skill set to implement the intervention that that community is thinking about to address the health outcomes for their community members. So, yes, our medical students are participating in real time in these interventions, which is very unique. And many, many students don't, medical students uh don't have that opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

And very practically, um, from a curricular standpoint, what's that look like? We have an exercise that's really cool that you lead the students through. I'll kind of set you up that up with the creating a healthy meal. That's one very tangible example of how that's that curriculum is integrated into the curriculum.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Yeah, so in our population health curriculum, we have uh different components. We have um um dynamic audiovisual modules, we have dynamic in-person sessions, and then we have immersion experiences within our community. One of our key faculty members, uh, Dr. Sam Palmer, leads our nutrition course, where he essentially, we essentially are giving um um um visa gift cards uh in the amount of what the average four-membered family in Arkansas would have for a meal in Arkansas. And then every group is assigned to a specific uh store, grocery store where food is sold. And not every grocery store is the same in the Delta. You have a grocery store that's well um equipped with groceries and fresh fruits and fresh produce and uh products uh that would uh that are you know organic. Other places, not so much so. And so students are randomly assigned to different places where the average Arkansan would get food. And when they come back, they have to report what they learned, what they were able to uh purchase with the amount of money that they had for the number of people in their homes. They have to come together and prepare the food and eat it together. So there's a communing and a fellowship. So they're reflecting on the exercise. And some students are assigned to the family dollar or the general dollar, dollar general, I should say. Some places or some students are assigned to Kroger, some are assigned to Walmarts. Again, they're randomly assigned to different locations where you know Arkansans live so they can get a lived experience about the next time I tell my patient, I need you to go eat some healthy food and exercise. They're gonna start thinking, well, where exactly do you live? And they're gonna do their due diligence and kind of figure out, you know what, there isn't a lot of produce that's around your area. I'm gonna have to be more thoughtful about how we can make more of these foods accessible to you. And if we can't, what's an alternative? So all the onus isn't all on the patient. It can be a shared decision making and resources can be provided. So we want our students not only to just get book knowledge, it's important for them to have these immersion experiences. And also there's other exercises we have in the program where they engage with state leaders, uh, community leaders. They're engaging with community members where they're sharing their own lived experiences about health and well-being. And so, again, we really want the students to have real life experiences. And they've done fantastic. I mean, we've gotten great feedback from our community partners who've engaged with our students, but our students come back saying, I've number one, never been in these spaces if they are not from Arkansas. We have many who are from Arkansas. We also have people who are from Arkansas who have been to the places we've assigned them to, also. So people are getting learning experiences from all different perspectives.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

And those are the small communities, some often the small communities around Jonesboro that are a little bit more rural.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Absolutely. Yeah. So we are we are sending our students up and down Delta counties, uh, north, mid, lower south, uh, for them to get really the best experiences possible for them to understand um what our Kansas go through.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

And so for this specific example, I've heard our students uh come back and report kind of what they felt coming out of that. And all of our programs, I feel like empathy is such an important factor in being a good physician. I've been able to hear them talk about how they've taken away an experience where they're able to be a little bit more empathetic to see what their uh future patients will experience. That's a big part of that, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Yeah, Casey, I can't imagine um not truly being able to understand what people go through without imposing yourself in that position. And the next best thing that we can offer is a pathway that's similar to what our patients are experiencing as they're navigating their communities for healthy options. And so one of the outcomes from those experiences, not only are they gaining head knowledge, but also again, as osteopathic physicians or one of our tenants, is that we have to think of the body, mind, and spirit. Um, one of the things that we want our students to do is uh to be aware that these experiences evoke empathy. Um, and the further you are away from people's live experiences, it's much easier to just debunk what they're experiencing or forget about it all completely, um, or give yourself a pass of saying, hey, that's not my problem. When you are in proximity to suffering and struggle, um, you have to, you have to have a response, right? And so these experiences evoke that. And then we give opportunities of reflection. I think physicians um are really, especially when it comes to wellness and well-being and longevity in the practice of medicine, it really is important for um physicians to practice this muscle of empathy, especially when it gets hard, when they're providing care in a healthcare system that's incredibly fragmented. Having this muscle of empathy and not only like, oh, I feel sorry, but I am going to respond to the suffering that I see my patients go through in a very intentional way. There's a lot of studies to show that that actually strengthens your longevity in medicine and it gives you joy in the work that you're doing. So this is just, is this is not just empathy for empathy's sake while our patients need it. And empathy itself, actually, their study to show that it actually supports the well-being of our patients. There are many times where I am providing care for a patient and I don't have a cure, a cure uh for their ailment, but me being intentional and demonstrating empathy in and of itself uh can be therapeutic to the patients. And I think it's something that we need to um be very intentional as osteopathic medical educators to uh teach our students, evoke in our in our in our students, and also demonstrate it. And our our curriculum is set up to do that at the heart of what we do.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

And a piece of that, I know that it's a lot conceptual, but it's very practical too. And uh we do health screenings. We have a Delta Caravan, which is a mobile medical unit that we take to these small communities, and our students get to actually go um provide those screenings. They get to deliver vaccines. Can you tell me in real practical ways some of those hands-on experiences like delivering vaccines, reading blood pressure, things like that, that those experiences that they're gonna benefit from?

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Yeah, we have a mobile health unit called the Delta Care Van.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Um C-A-R-E, Care A van.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Care a van, care-a-van. Um, and the van essentially is um a mobile vehicle that allows us to bring care where there may be um a lack or access to health care itself. And so we do provide preventive services looking to provide a full continuity of care in the near future. But at the moment, we're providing preventive care services where our students and our faculty, our clinical faculty, provide oversight to our medical students to do screening for cardiovascular disease, for uh blood pressure issues, for mental health issues, health coaching, et cetera. And so our students are immediately the moment they get into the medical school, they have an opportunity to get on this uh uh for us to travel to areas and provide services through the mobile health unit. Um, and immediately our students are putting their skills to work. They're taking blood pressures of the patients, they're learning how to draw blood to screen for cardiovascular disease, markers for cardiovascular disease. And our students are excited about it. They're saying, hey, I'm not just reading books hours on end. When I'm engaging in rural communities, I'm saying, this is exactly why I went to medical school for. This is what I want to be. And so it really does help and energize and encourage our students. And also our community members love seeing our medical students, right? They're just so full of hope. And they're saying, hey, I'm waiting for you to start this clinic in this area, right? So um it's such a wonderful bi-directional experience with our students, our community members that we're serving when we're providing preventive care. It's it's it's really a remarkable experience.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

And you mentioned the leadership aspect of kind of taking charge at those events, but also, you know, physicians have a great influence to leverage teaching their patients, educating their patients about, and those specific events give our students an opportunity to have those individual conversations and develop that skill and develop again, as you mentioned, that leadership.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yeah, you know, physicians uh have um a significant amount of influence that they can leverage when it comes to educating our patients around their health and well-being. Unfortunately, we're in a healthcare system where the care, uh, the time that we need to give care is not given, right? For us to give extensive time to provide care. Um, and it doesn't mean that we don't. We do what we can in the time that we have, uh, but there's certainly situations where more time is required, depending on the complexity of the care that our uh our patients require. And so uh with that, we have an opportunity for our van, our students in our rural settings through the van to provide health education for more time under the supervision of our clinical faculty, um, in a way that usually is not given in a typical medical school curriculum. Um, so we have more time, uh, there's more um training and understanding of how do we assess when a patient is ready for change. And for every stage they are in that continuum of ready for readiness for change, there's a different intervention. And our students are beginning to practice that in real time, not in a fast and a hurried way, because our community members love to chat and talk. So we do that. But our students really get to engage with them and ask them questions. So, you know, tell me about your kids. You have a farmland, what are you growing in your farm? You know, where do you work? What do you love to do in your spare time? Really just getting to know your patients and exercising that skill that doesn't just come because you're a doctor. It has to be practice and this rural setting in the communities where we are. Um, you know, it's a great place for us to start exercising that muscle so they feel more confident in their in their academic training.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Yeah. And, you know, health policy is also a very important component of all this. We have a congressional fellowship, um, our local congressman. Rick Crawford has been a big part of that, letting students come alongside him and experience that legislative process. Tell me a little bit about that, but also why health policy is so important and such a vital component to the programs that you're helping lead.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Yeah. So, Casey, uh just as you said, Congressman Rick Crawford approached us really when the school opened up, uh, for the moment it opened up and wanted to explore an opportunity to engage with our medical students. I think he definitely saw like many leaders across the state and our region saw that having this medical school here would increase the physician uh uh shortage uh that we're experiencing. And I would say this was a way that he invested into this vision to ensure that our medical students understood that as an osteopathic physician, again, they have an influence to leverage, to address a direction where healthcare delivery is going. And for the most part, when you look back historically, the decisions around how a healthcare system is ran, how we deliver healthcare, um, physicians are not usually at the table. And so I one of the things that I appreciate in our approach here as a medical institution here in this region is that we we we believe it is our responsibility to engage uh in at the policy level, not one-on-one only and when we're providing clinical care. But we also believe that we have to be um engaging with policymakers and informing them because they're not providing care to the patients. That's not their primary role, but they are looking to be informed about what's happening to their constituents. Why are their constituents so ill? Why are the communities not uh uh well as they should be? And we're in a prime position, being in proxy to our patients, number one, to raise the voices of our patients in this setting, if the patients can't be there, but also talk about the healthcare system, what it ought to be to make sure that we're addressing the concerns and the well-being of their constituents. And so, um, you know, from the way we provide care to what we can prescribe, to what we can uh refer, who we can refer to, all of that is really driven by policy. Yeah. Okay. And most medical students, I would say there really isn't any medical core medical education that addresses the policies that drives the system that we're in. And again, what's unique for our curriculum here and our our way, not just our curriculum, the way that we do health and health care uh at NYIT is that we take responsibility for where we can exert our influence as healthcare professionals, as osteopathic physicians, to let the policymakers know this is what's needed to ensure that every Arkansan will be as healthy as possible. And when they do need care, this is how they can get the care without no little to no barrier or restriction. So we think it's so important that our students are aware of that, that they engage on the federal level, at the state level, but also local level. There are policies that are being made about sidewalks, green space, healthy food, how our food is being produced. And we want our students to get these key skills to understand how the system works, but also how to use and leverage their influence as healthcare professionals, as osteopathic physicians, to make sure that there are opportunities of health for all their patients, specifically here in this region.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Yeah, we we've talked a lot about osteopathic medicine and the distinctions uh of uh the practice, the way that our students are taught from that lens. And this all plays into that. Let's take back a step back and take a big picture, holistic view at everything that affects uh uh someone's the the their wellness, their opportunity to be well. And so all of that kind of plays into that osteopathic philosophy as well.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Yes. You know, I what I want to what I want to add to that is one of our tenets in osteopathic medicine is that there's an interrelatedness, into the interrelationship between structure and function. Meaning the structure that you're in, or that your structure of your organ system of your body affects the functionality of your body. And that idea is seen within the ecosystems that we live in, right? The structure of my neighborhood, the structure of my community affects my function. It affects my function of where I can go, what I can do, the options I have to be healthy, to be well. And I love seeing that osteopathic tenant translate not only in osteopathic medicine, but in population health. And we can easily, because we can, we, we have a vision of that, we can easily see how we can um um address these issues that are that are really affecting our patients and our community members.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

It's really interesting to hear you explain that that way because I've always thought of the structure function tenet as specific to um anatomy and physiology of the human body, but you're kind of giving me a different way of looking at that, the structure of our socioeconomic systems and of our communities that that also affects the function of and plays into that tenant. That's a really interesting way to look at it.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Absolutely. Our our our our networks determine the options we we know of. Yeah. Right. Um, where we can go to get the resources that we need for many people depends on their zip code. Yeah. So um, and and because because of that reality, it's important that osteopathic physicians uh come to that awareness, but also when there is a disparity in health outcomes, do something about it because everyone deserves to have the opportunity to be as healthy as possible.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Yeah. Um, we we've talked about some generalities of um specific needs, but I want to talk about one specific area that your team is doing a lot of work, is going to be doing some more work uh coming up, and that's maternal health. Uh, unfortunately, you know, what we've heard a lot about, specifically in Arkansas and the Delta and the South, uh, maternal health outcomes, childhood health outcomes are um are are lagging. They're there there's a lot of work to be done in that area, and your team is doing that. Can you speak specifically to uh what your team is doing and why that's so important?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Yes, Casey. So you uh alluded to uh a very grim reality about the health outcomes that are in Arkansas, specifically around maternal health. So um Arkansas is one of the highest ranking states when it comes to the death of moms uh in this country. And unfortunately, but also I see as an opportunity is that over 92% of these deaths are preventable. Um, and because of this opportunity, I am grateful to be part of NYIT that has come that really have uh has committed them uh itself to um addressing these key issues as to why are our moms dying uh related to their pregnancy, right? Associated to pregnancy related reasons why they're why they're why they're dying. So there's a a publication, uh, the Arkansas uh maternal uh mortality review publication that essentially points to what we are learning about why moms are dying. And the committee review uh made multiple recommendations of what different people can do depending on who you are. And so there were recommendations for the mom uh themselves, mothers themselves, for families, for hospital clinics and communities. And so uh what we did at the Delta Population Health Institute was look at those recommendations, recommendations and say, hey, what is what can we do with what we have? What's what's our skill set? What are we good at? And the first thing that we said is like, hey, we're healthcare professionals, we're we're health educators. And so um we began to create an intervention three years ago. We created this intervention where we wanted to address um the sense of isolation that moms created, create communities in different different learning cohorts and care cohorts in different communities uh in various hubs across the Delta, upper, mid, lower delta. And these communities would come together for, I would say, health coaching and seminars around what happens before pregnancy, but also when you have a child, how do you get them ready for life and well-being and ready for kindergarten? So we were doing this for about three years, and we've got great feedback from our moms. Uh, we um hired peer-to-peer mentors from the community to remain for the mom for these peer-to-peer mentors sort of commute connected with these cohorts to reinforce the ideas, but also be supportive if there's anything that would come up in their care. These cohorts, uh these learning cohorts and care cohorts, uh had access to myself as an osteopathic family medicine physician, to OBGYN and a pediatrician uh when it comes to guidance, direction, and education, which is also unique. Our medical students participated in the cohorts. They've even created the blueprint of the curriculum, right? And they were participating, contributing to that because of uh really because they just love doing this work and are very passionate about educating patients. So we made sure there was representation within the healthcare system, but also um uh wanted to be intentional about the unique spaces that moms were living in. And so the moms came to these sessions. We got great feedback from the moms, feedback like they felt like they were heard, they felt like they were ready with their pregnancy plan, they had contingency plans if things didn't work out well. They felt supported, they felt like they wanted to be a champion in their community. They said no one really sat down and had conversations. Our seminars would be two and a half hours, three hours. We also graduated some of our moms. If they completed all of the sessions, they got a certificate of completion. And so there was the sense of accomplishment that our moms sensed when they completed the program. And really, it was just one way for us to address a very complex, just a piece of the pie. And very recently, we were approached uh by the Department of Human Services for a really um incredible collaboration to expand the scope and depth of our work. Uh, and I want to share about how we wanted to, how we expanded the scope and a depth of our work. Essentially, before this collaboration, we would tell our moms, hey, this is what you need to do to advocate for yourself when to bring something to the attention of your healthcare professional. Um, and and many times, apart from us saying, hey, this is what you got to do and this is where you got to go, we didn't know if they got the follow-up they needed. We don't know if the situation was addressed because there was just a limitation. We didn't have control with the healthcare system that the area that we were working in. And we would drive to different parts of the region, have these sessions. But while we established relationships with the healthcare system, we really didn't have an influence to say, hey, just want to let you know, you know, how do we know they're getting the care that they need? What this collaboration does right now with the Department of Human Services is allow us to actually build an ecosystem, not only providing care to the moms and their families through our residency program that we're about to uh to about to deploy, we are now deploying a social network around the healthcare services so that if there are other issues such as food insecurity, housing insecurity, uh, transportation issues, we're creating a coordination of care network around uh the clinical and residency care that we are providing for moms in rural spaces and connection to rural hospitals, which really creates essentially an ecosystem where no matter what door that mom enters within the community, they're entering into our ecosystem. They have a high-touch connection. There's always someone tracking with them all the way through. They will always be connected to a healthcare professional within our team. Their their needs will be immediately addressed. And now we can actually see if the interventions that we are deploying, what difference is it making? And when we see that it is making a difference, how can we scale this out to other organizations and other systems? So we're incredibly excited about this because quite frankly, education is really one piece of the pie. We have to address the entire system. We have to talk about policy, we have to talk about addressing the fragmentation within a healthcare system and how difficult it is to navigate. Quite frankly, no matter what degree you have, it's hard to navigate the healthcare system. Um, so we are um in this space of deploying this intervention uh that will really, uh we believe, provide high-touch but comprehensive and holistic care for our moms and their children and to prepare their children for readiness for for kindergarten. That means we have to address average childhood experiences. We have to address mental health, we have to prepare the readiness for moms, dads, the entire family, really what requires to deliver uh the type of care that we want to.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Much more to come very soon on that. So we look forward to telling people a lot more about that. We're gonna wrap this thing up. This has been a great conversation, really uh, really good stuff. But I just want to give you an opportunity to pitch to our future students. You've talked about all these programs, all these opportunities. Uh, our listeners can hear the passion in your voice. I know well, just from working with you the last eight years about uh how passionate, how passionate, how knowledgeable um you are about finding resources to address these things. But from a student standpoint, that's considering our medical school, why should they want to be a part of all the work that you're doing and your team is doing?

SPEAKER_00 35:29

You know, I think there are um quite frankly, there are a lot of great places to get an osteopathic medical education. Why uh NYIT has distinct, uh a distinct uniqueness and features that I don't think you will find in other places. Not only for this healthcare system and the climate that we're in right now, it's not just it's not good enough to be a really good doctor. It's not enough. Um, a good doctor in a bad healthcare system is bad healthcare. And so I truly believe, NYIT truly believes, our team truly believes, and we have seen the outcome of this is that when our medical students are trained to be osteopathic physician leaders, not only are they able to provide care one-on-one, they're able to lead endeavors and movements that addresses the system in which we all live in that will not only provide care when something goes wrong, but can prevent things from going on because we're thinking about the opportunities of health that are that need to be presented to all people. And so um, if you want to be an osteopathic physician leader, NYIT, I believe, is a pioneer in that space. And not only that, you're learning how to be a holistic leader so that you can be well to practice wellness, to demonstrate wellness. And so um there are very, very few places that can do that. I think um, again, people have many options, but I think over the years, we have demonstrated that we've centered our training, our intentionality for the success of our students to make sure that they have these skill sets. Again, not to be only great osteopathic medical educations, but to be osteopathic medical leaders in their community, in the healthcare setting and outside the healthcare setting. That's what's necessary to get the change that we desire to see.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

So if you want to be part of that change, this is your opportunity to do it to come train. So, Dr. This has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for your time. If you want to learn more about our medical school, you can visit us online at nyit.edu slash Arkansas. Our social media pages are ny tcomar on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. And we'd love for you to follow us to learn more about what's going on in our medical school day to day. We hope you've enjoyed our conversation. Thanks for joining us. We will see you next time.