Health and Wellness

Mississippi faces shortage of black doctors, even as lawmakers increasingly crack down on diversity programs

Published

8 months ago

July 18, 2024

IAM

Jerrian Reedy was 9 when his father was admitted to a hospital in Hattiesburg, about two hours northeast of New Orleans, with three gunshot wounds. Reedy recalled visiting his father within the intensive care unit that summer in 2009, even though children weren’t normally allowed in that part of the hospital.

“Just seeing him lying in bed, in a hospital bed, was traumatic for me, to say the least,” Reedy said.

His father died per week after his admission, in the center of a nine-month period by which Reedy also lost his aunt and grandmother. “They say death comes in threes,” he said.

This chain of events led him to pursue a medical profession that might help him protect other children from losing family members too early.

Fifteen years later, Reedy has accomplished his first 12 months on the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, a remarkable accomplishment, and never simply because his profession path was born of grief and trauma. Reedy is one of a small group of black medical students in a state where nearly 4 in 10 — but just one in 10 doctors — discover as black or African American. Of the 660 medical students enrolled in the identical four-year program as Reedy, 82 students, or about 12%, are black.

Medical schools across the country are scrambling to recruit Black, Latino and Native American students, who’re still disproportionately underrepresented within the medical field. Studies have shown that patients of color prefer to see doctors of their race — and a few studies have shown that health outcomes are higher for Black patients who see Black doctors.

But a recent surge in opposition from Republicans threatens to undermine those efforts, school administrators say, and will deepen the deep disparities in health care access already experienced by people of color.

From 2023 – the 12 months by which Supreme Court votes to ban positive discrimination In higher education, greater than two dozen states, including Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas, have introduced or passed laws geared toward restricting or banning diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs.

“I don’t expect this movement of anti-DEI legislation to slow down or stop at all,” said Anton Gunn, a health care consultant and former head of the Office of External Affairs on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “And it will likely intensify if Donald Trump is given the chance to become president of the United States again.”

Diversity programs meet resistance

In 2023, Florida and Texas became the primary states to pass laws banning DEI activities in higher education. Several other states, including Idaho, North Carolina and Wyoming, passed laws targeting such programs this 12 months.

In Mississippi, state Rep. Becky Currie and state Sen. Angela Burks Hill, each Republicans, introduced separate bills that may restrict how colleges and universities can spend money on DEI initiatives. Both bills have stalled in legislative committees and haven’t been dropped at the 2024 Legislature for a vote.

In a press release, Hill said Mississippi needs more doctors of all specialties, not only Black ones, and that she believes money spent on salaries and DEI programs should go toward initiatives that profit all students.

“Qualifications should determine who gets into medical school, not race or socioeconomic status,” she said. “Can’t we just be happy with more highly qualified doctors, regardless of race? I thought the goal was a race-blind society.”

The movement to ban DEI programs enjoys broad support from conservatives across the country.

Jay Greene, a senior fellow on the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, said he believes diversity programs “fail for hundreds of reasons.” he cited research he had conducted with a conservative public health group called Do No Harm, which rejects the idea that access to black doctors improves outcomes for black patients.

“That’s not to say there aren’t potential benefits to greater diversity in the medical profession,” Greene said. For example, more black doctors could encourage more black kids to contemplate careers in health care, he said. “But that benefit doesn’t apply to health outcomes.”

Meanwhile, school administrators are closely monitoring progress on such regulations.

In March, the University of Florida all DEI programs have been eliminated and fired employees related to those efforts. In Alabama, lawmakers and faculty leaders are grappling with a law signed that very same month by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey that may ban DEI programs in public schools, state agencies and universities starting Oct. 1.

“We have to be very, very careful,” said Richard deShazo, who teaches on the Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine on the University of Alabama at Birmingham and was chairman of a committee that raised money for black medical students.

“You can’t raise money for black kids. You have to raise money for medical students,” he said.

Bitter history

The shortage of black doctors is just not unique to Mississippi. The same story may very well be told in lots of other places, especially within the South, where greater than half of all black Americans live and where health outcomes consistently rank among the many worst in United States.

But if we have a look at Mississippi, one of the unhealthiest states within the country, we see how the roots of systemic racism proceed to shape the nation’s health care workforce.

“A lot of black doctors in the state have a bad taste in their mouths about our medical school,” said Demondes Haynes, associate dean for medical school admissions on the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where he graduated in 1999 as one of 4 black students in his class.

Mississippi is home to an estimated 1.1 million black people, but has fewer than 600 black doctors. Research suggests health outcomes would improve if there have been more of them. One study was published last 12 months within the medical journal JAMA Network Open It was found that life expectancy was longer amongst black patients in counties where a better percentage of primary care physicians are black.

In a 2018 study of greater than 1,300 black men in Oakland, California, those assigned to a black doctor were more more likely to comply with screening for diabetes, cholesterol and other health problems, in response to findings published in 2018 by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“We’re absolutely not saying every black patient has to have a black doctor,” Haynes said. But because Mississippi’s patient population is diverse, “they should at least have the right to say, ‘This is what I want,’” he added.

But most black patients don’t have that alternative. Nearly two dozen of Mississippi’s 82 counties haven’t any black doctors, while 4 counties say they haven’t any doctors in any respect, in response to Medical Staff Report published by the state in 2019

For greater than a century, from its founding within the mid-Nineteenth century, the University of Mississippi had not admitted black students—and that policy prolonged to its medical school. In 1972, nearly a decade after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial segregation in higher education, the primary black doctor to graduate from Jackson Medical School. Even then, only a few black students were accepted into medical school every year.

Before the federal government banned schools from rejecting black applicants because of race, prospective black doctors who applied were directed to historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, such as Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Haynes said.

Many older black doctors in Mississippi still remember getting rejection letters, he said, pointing to composite photographs of graduating doctors that adorn the partitions of the medical school constructing in Jackson. Many of the earliest composites, dating from the Fifties, show classes of all-white and almost all-male students.

“The history of Mississippi—everyone remembers it,” Haynes said. “And those who have experienced it have a hard time with it.”

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“Shaping Possibilities”

On a damp Saturday morning in mid-April, 17-year-old Dorothy Gray, a highschool sophomore, walked to a hospital bed at Jackson Medical School to intubate a simulated patient within the simulation lab.

Gray was one of greater than 100 highschool and college students who participated within the annual African American Visiting Day on the University of Mississippi Medical School, established greater than a decade ago to generate interest amongst prospective black students. Administrators, who also organize special visiting days for Latino and Native American students, said anyone, regardless of race or ethnicity, is welcome to participate. They acknowledge that the majority participants won’t turn into doctors, and their goal is just not to provide preferential treatment to minority applicants.

“It’s about shaping the possibilities of what could be,” said Loretta Jackson-Williams, associate dean for medical education. “These kids are on the edge of choosing something that’s really hard for their future, or choosing an easier path. That choice doesn’t happen overnight.”

In addition to African American Visiting Day, Mississippi medical school officials also offer a test prep program for applicants from underrepresented backgrounds who weren’t accepted to medical school.

The school recently identified 16 applicants, 12 of whom were black, who weren’t accepted to medical school within the last admissions cycle because their MCAT scores were too low. This 12 months, those applicants will receive a test-prep course developed by The Princeton Review — free of charge — and can have the chance to satisfy with administrators to learn strengthen their medical school applications.

“So many students have never heard someone say, ‘You can do this. I believe you can do this,’” said Dan Coleman, the medical school’s director of outreach.

For Jerrian Reedy, who desires to be an orthopedic surgeon, the road to medical school took years. He took advantage of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s PROMISE program — short for Promoting Recruitment Opportunities in Medicine with Individual Study Experiences — which offers admission to underprivileged students who meet certain qualifications, including a 3.0 grade point average in undergraduate science classes.

During his second 12 months of undergraduate studies, Reedy saw a chance to learn more about medical school when Haynes, the associate dean, visited the Ole Miss campus in Oxford to interview students.

“I saw a few spots open, I put my name down,” he said. “The rest is history.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth health journalism and is one of the important operating programs of KFF, an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com

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Health and Wellness

I am a medical forensic examiner. Here’s what people can expect from a health response from sexual assault

Published

6 hours ago

March 3, 2025

IAM

Estimated one in five women and one in 16 men In Australia, she experienced sexual violence.

After such a traumatic experience, it’s comprehensible that many are usually not sure in the event that they wish to report it to the police. In fact, Less than 10% Australian women who experience sexual assault, if he gives a police report.

In Australia it’s No closing date After notifying the sexual assault to the police. However, there are strict time frames for collecting forensic evidence, which can sometimes be a very important a part of a police investigation, no matter whether it begins.

This implies that the choice whether to undergo a medical forensic examination should be taken quite quickly after the assault.

I work as a medical forensic examiner. Here’s what you can expect for those who present a medical forensic examination after sexual assault.

A team of specialists

There are about 100 sexual assault services in Australia, providing 24-hour care. As with other healthcare areas, there are additional challenges in regional and rural areaswhere there are sometimes further distances from travel and deficiencies.

Sexual assault services in Australia are free, whatever the status of Medicare. To find the closest service, you can call 1800 respect (1800 737 732) or Full stop australia (1800 385 578) who can also provide immediate support for telephone counseling.

It is very important to call the local sexual assault service before appearing. They can provide victims to experience information and advice to stop delay and make the method as helpful as possible.

Consultations often occur within the Hospital Emergency Department, which has a designated forensic apartment or within the Specialist Forensic Service.

The victim-over is seen by doctor or nurse Trained in the sphere of medical and criminal care. There is a sexual assault, crisis worker or social employee to support the patient and provides advice on advice. This known as “Integrated answer“With medical and psychosocial employees working together.

In most cases, the victim’s survival might also have the presence of his own support person.

Depending on what the victim is wants, the doctor or nurse will take the history of the robbery to conduct any medical care which may be needed (e.g. emergency anticretation) and conduct the examination.

Sexual assault services are all the time very conscious dishes to victims of selection in the sphere of medical forensic examination. If a person presents a sexual assault service, he can receive advice and medical care without undergoing forensic examinations if he doesn’t wish to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cglbtgia0ek

Sexual assault services include all sexes.

Collecting forensic samples

Samples collected during a medical forensic examination can sometimes discover the DNA of the perpetrator or intoxicants (alcohol or drugs that can be relevant to the examination). . Possibility window Collecting these samples can be as short as 12 hours or as much as 5-7 days, depending on the character of the sexual assault.

In most Australia, an adult who has experienced a recent sexual assault, you can offer a medical forensic examination without submitting a report for the police.

Depending on the condition or territory of the forensic samples, you can often store for 3 to 12 months (as much as 100 years in Tasmania). This allows victims of time to survive definitely whether or not they wish to release them to the police for processing.

A health care provider or nurse will take samples using a sexual assault investigation kit or “rape set”.

Collecting these samples may include taking swabs to detect DNA from external and internal genital areas and wherever DNA transfer may occur. This may come from skin cells during which the perpetrator affected the victim’s snack or from body fluids, including sperm or saliva.

A health care provider or nurse conducting the examination is minimized by re -traumatization, providing information, elections and control of the victim at every stage of the method.

The victim-overhang can often have a support person with him.
Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

What about sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy?

During the consultation, the doctor or nurse will address all fears about sexually transmitted infections (sti) and pregnancy if concerned.

In most cases, the danger of sexually transmitted diseases is low. But check tests for 1-2 weeks by way of infection, reminiscent of chlamydia and gonorrhea, and after 6-12 weeks In the case of infections reminiscent of syphilis and HIV, it is normally advisable.

Emergency contraception can be provided (sometimes called “in the morning after a pill”) prevent pregnancy. It can be downloaded as much as five days after sexual assault (however the faster) with pregnancy tests advisable after 2-3 weeks.

Everything has improved over time

When I was a younger doctor at the tip of the 90s, taking foreheads were often chargeable for an busy international trainee and gynecology on the Emergency Department, which regularly managed many patients and had a small training in the sphere of criminalistics. Usually there was no supporting advisor.

Anegdotically each the doctor and the patient were traumatic through this experience. Studies show that when specialized integrated services are usually not provided, a sense of powerlessness of the victim They are enlarged.

But the way in which we conduct medical forensic examinations after sexual assault in Australia has improved through the years.

Thanks to practices focused on the patient and the appointed criminal and advisory staff, the patient’s experience is believed Strengthening position than for re -traumatizing.

A sign before the Australian police station. — Less than 10% of Australian women who experience sexual assault, in the event that they even submit a police report.
Melissa Meehan/AAP

Our research

In latest studies published in Australian Journal of General PracticeMy colleagues and I studied the experience of medical criminal examination from the angle of a victim.

We analyzed 291 patients who provide sexual assault services in New South Wales (where I work) for 4 years.

About 75% of patients said that the study was calming and one other 20% said it was high-quality. Only 2% said it was traumatic. Most (98%) stated that they’d recommend a friend present within the service of sexual assault in the event that they were in a similar situation.

While patients talked positively in regards to the care received, many commented that the sexual assault service was not visible enough. They didn’t know learn how to find it and even existed.

We know that many victims’ victims don’t present a sexual assault service or undergo a medical forensic examination after sexual assault. So we must do more to extend the visibility of those services.

This article was originally published on : theconversation.com

Health and Wellness

Milan Fashion Week rejects the classics – essence

Published

7 hours ago

March 3, 2025

Getty images

“It’s boring, boring, boring,” said the deceased André Leon Talley from Milan Fashion Week in an interview with 1998 with Videofashion. His own words: “You can go for a week of concerts in a city like Milan, and you sit there and want to jump from the shelf until you reach Gucci.” Italian fashion, like Italian culture, is kind of conservative in comparison with the remainder of the fashion capitals, apart from brands corresponding to Moschino, Versace and Roberto Cavalli, where there are more.

New York is full of life and democratic. London is normally suggestive, filled with creative genius. Paris transfers fashion to the highest heights. And a city whose fashion is usually in comparison with Milan, large for craft – and Flash – is understood for designers who bored fashion fanatics, but they’re sublime. It can be filled with family businesses corresponding to Prada and Fendi. I mean, give it some thought, all of us love pasta, since it is reliably tasty, pizza is the default when nobody in the room can resolve what to eat, and it’s rare that any of those disappoints the palate. In this fashion I see Milan Fashion Week. You know what you’ll get and it should be nice.

The prospects have now opened a bit, and designers corresponding to Maximillian Davis and Matthieu Blazy Zhuzs Up Italian trick, corresponding to Ferragamo and Bottega Veneta. Several other designers have also strengthened the energy of the week with more vivid clothes. But let’s bring it back to Talley. What is “boring” in fashion now? In this fashion, people dress, and “quiet luxury” remains to be guilty. It seems that Milan programs this season help to initiate an era that claims that it energy energy again: easy with a funny return.

Jil Sander’s clothes bloom

Milan Fashion Week imprints the classics

Giovanni Giannoni/WWD via Getty Images

With the exception of 1 blue and one red leather look and a buffed pink dress with columns, the colours in the Jil Sander collection are quite neutral. These are the details they like: double stripes that don’t beg to be noticed, fur at the top of the shirt and coat collars and on the sleeves, sporadically feathered dress and sweater. The collection began with the honest participation of its clothes, which flicker with fringes, giving it an actual party atmosphere. The lace cover worn on white organza and high black shoes caused a distinct approach to an office dressing, wherein explicit, girlish femininity can coexist with elegant improvement. Many women can look and run with them, like men, with their close bags, nonchalan skirts and Rockstar shoes. This program was the final presentation of the husband and wife’s duo who’re apparently Ending their time in the brand: Luke and Lucia Meier (they began running the house in 2017).

Marni animated runway

Victor Virgin/Gamma-RPHO by Getty Images

When there have been rumors about who would take over Chanel after the VIARD VIARD leaving the brand, I used to be hoping that one in all Jeremy Scott was real. Because fashion desperately needs humor. Nowadays, every little thing is so tense and few people seem funny. Except for, say, Jonathan Anderson and Francesco Risso in Marni. Ready to wear the brand this season, it looked as if it would a mix of ideas in other concert events over the past few seasons, making a sort of carrying a horse.
There was a kamea from such a classy Tracee Ellis Ross-I can not give you a greater casting decision. The neck of the curly sweater of the follicle captivated me. In combination with it there have been brown suede pants and glossy, multi -colored Oxfords, which delivered to mind shoes with a faucet. The pink bubble rubber coat had buttons, a collar and a breast pocket. Another coat, blue, had gray fur. Apart from the fabrics and color, they enlivened these clothes, these are prolonged proportions, which is all the time fun. This is a miserable thing that makes you ought to watch again.

Fendi celebrates a mode century

Giovanni Giannoni/WWD via Getty Images

Fendi celebrated a centenary with a program that she threw light on why it was so heralded. The tailoring was liquid, daring prints, and the coats beautiful. And we now have Silvia Venturini Fendi to thank. Many stories were told here. There is, in fact, the history of the House of Craft Fur Production, which took shape in coats with a collar with out a collar, long vests and steles. Deep shades in eye-catching productions emphasize wealth-aestly and economically-we are going to have the ability to with Fendi.

General coats and sick ladyiste dresses, cut out, were smooth butter, quality people have recently loved the brand. Sneaky cardigans, skirts, dresses and sweater have been decorated with drags and countless shapes. The dolls took place and hung from the bags. This created a set that spoke with a consumer and culture, not only to himself. The advantage of the brand was that it didn’t depend on her archives. It was not on the nose together with his references. Instead, it remained fresh, next to other collections, but was expected one step over them

Burberry is on itself

Giovanni Giannoni/WWD via Getty Images

Daniel Lee’s works in the cult British label people query the brand’s evolution and what means to stay faithful to its history. Industry and its viewers have two minds: some imagine that the home is flourishing when it draws from its heritage, only barely improving him to keep up significance; Others have a more progressive perspective, observing, fairly exactly that fashion is the most when the brands are approaching friends. Christopher Bailey and Riccardo Tisci’s Burberry hit many as unknown. The recent, sometimes dizzying ideas of those designers apparently “did not work”, and on this desire that folks would feel as in the event that they knew the brand again.

Enter: Lee, who joined the label from Bottega Veneta, and whose clothes are easier on the eye, like the current Bottega. His Fall 2025 collection had a really desirable appearance of the same colours, a big sweater dress, a rather glitter leather coat in navy blue blue and other “oooos”, but often “Aaah”. In many respects, clothes sell, adapting to other elements in the collection and translating well into real life, life that’s interesting and dressed as such.

This article was originally published on : www.essence.com

Health and Wellness

Odra situation around the world: less vaccinations and more explosions

Published

2 days ago

March 2, 2025

IAM

The US has registered their first death from the Oder since 2015. This week, because a baby who was not vaccinated died in the Odra eruption in Texas.

Usually, most American cases are delivered to the country by individuals who traveled abroad. Until now, Texas officials have reported 124 cases. New Mexico reported nine.

Experts point to a decrease in vaccination indicators from the Odra around the world since the Covid-19 pandemic. In the United States, most of the states are currently below 95% of the vaccination threshold for preschoolers – the level needed to guard the community from the Oder’s explosions.

Great Britain reported 2911 confirmed cases of the Oder in 2024, the highest variety of cases recorded yearly, from 2012.

The cases of the Odra in the United States last yr were almost twice as much as for all 2023, raising concerns a few child virus preventive. Health officials confirmed the cases of measles in a minimum of 18 states in 2024, including New York, Philadelphia and Chicago.

“Odra is a threat everywhere anywhere,” say American Center for Disease Control on its website.

Here is a brief have a look at the global situation of the Oder.

Are the Odra explosions common outside the USA?

According to the World Health Organization, about 10.3 million people were infected in 2023 and 107,500 died. Most of them are unvaccinated people or children under the age of 5. Cases were most frequently partly of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where the income is low and health services insufficient.

In places where measles were largely eliminated, cases spread by travelers from other countries.

While the measles related to the Odra decreased barely in 2023, the variety of epidemic increased. The primary explosions took place in 57 countries in 2023, including India and Indonesia, Russia, Yemen and Iraq. The largest variety of cases in 2023 was 311,500 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

What is the impact of vaccinations?

The global childhood vaccination rate has dropped in recent times, to 83% in 2023 from 86% in 2019, partly as a consequence of vaccination and healthcare disturbances as a consequence of pandemic.

WHO estimates that vaccinations have helped to forestall over 60 million deaths around the world in the years 2000–2023, as shots increase to extend arrows for more people. In 2000, it’s estimated that 800,062 people died of measles. Before introducing the vaccine in 1963, the primary epidemics caused about 2.6 million deaths a yr.

Odra is so infectious that 95% immunity is required to forestall an epidemic, says WHO. In other words, he infects about 9 out of 10 people revealed in the event that they shouldn’t have immunity.

What international efforts are in the means of stopping an epidemic?

WHO and others support the effort called “Agenda Immunization 2021-2030” to press the Odra elimination.

Independent experts announced America -free America in 2016, but this status was lost in 2018 as a consequence of the Odra epidemic in Brazil and Venezuela. Experts say that reduced vaccination indicators undermine efforts to completely eliminate the disease.

Global health organizations and other groups have increased their efforts to speed up vaccination programs and closure of gaps in prevention.