News

ABC NEWS | By FELICIA FONSECA, ASSOCIATED PRESS | TUBA CITY, Ariz. — Jun 27, 2019, 9:57 AM ET

Colon cancer took a heavy toll on Loren McCabe's family.

His great-grandmother was diagnosed too late to fight it. His grandfather didn't want to travel for treatment because he felt better protected within the Navajo Nation's four sacred mountains. McCabe's mother died, too, after choosing treatment so she could see her son graduate from college but having to travel far to receive it.

None had the option of being treated on their reservation, nor do Native Americans elsewhere in the United States, despite having higher rates for some types of cancer.

A hospital on the rural Navajo Nation that serves Navajo, Hopi and San Juan Southern Paiute tribal members is changing that with a cancer treatment center that offers chemotherapy and screenings and takes into account certain cultural beliefs. For instance, the new center at the Tuba City Regional Health Care Corp. is housed in a nondescript building because Navajos believe speaking of death or disease will invite it into their lives.

It welcomed its first patient this month.

» Read the full article at link below:

A Message from the Senior Vice President for Health Sciences: Arizona AHEC Leadership Transition

SHOTS | Health News from NPR | Laurel Morales, May 29, 2019

Neda Billie has been waiting to turn on lights in her home for 15 years.

"We've been living off those propane lanterns," she says. "Now we don't have to have flashlights everywhere. All the kids have a flashlight so when they get up in the middle of the night like to use the restroom they have a flashlight to go to [the outhouse]."

Billie, her husband and their five kids live in a tiny, one-room hogan, a traditional Navajo home. Their three sheep graze on sagebrush that carpets the rolling hills of Dilkon, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation, the largest Native American reservation in the U.S.

They watch two men in a cherry picker hook up the last power line to their home. Billie says they've gone through too many generators to count.

"My two boys, they have really bad allergies and they have asthma, so sometimes they need the nebulizer," Billie says. "So we usually go to my mom's house, travel in the middle of the night over there back and forth."

The Billies are not alone. About 10% of Navajos on the reservation live without electricity. And as much as 40% of them have to haul their water and use outhouses. A poll of rural Americans conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that more than a quarter of Native Americans have experienced problems with electricity, the Internet and with the safety of their drinking water.

Northern Arizona University professor Manley Begay Jr., who is Navajo, says the numbers are probably even higher. Begay says electricity provides more than just light. With electricity, a family can pump water, charge their phone, store food, even get and maintain a job.

"Electricity itself provides a tremendous amount of convenience and having access to the world at large," Begay says. "You can just imagine if you were to fill out an application for a job, you do it online and you send it in. Or you're Googling for information — if you don't have electricity, you're in trouble."

Begay says he recently saw something strange when he pulled into a hotel parking lot in Window Rock, Ariz., the capital of the Navajo Nation. He noticed a bunch of teenagers in their cars.

"You could tell that they were high school students," Begay says. "They were doing their homework outside this hotel in the parking lot. They had the light on in their cars and doing their homework. It became quite clear that they didn't have Internet."

» Continued at link below:

The prestigious recognition is bestowed on University of Arizona alumni who have uniquely demonstrated a commitment to an academic college's success and mission through professional achievement, service or support.

Dan Derksen, MD, professor of public health and family and community medicine, has been named the College of Medicine – Tucson’s 2019 Alumni of the Year. The honor is bestowed annually by the University of Arizona Alumni Association.

Dr. Derksen completed his bachelor’s degree and medical degree and at the University of Arizona. He then went on to complete his residency in family medicine at the University of New Mexico (UNM).

After spending 25 years as a faculty member at UNM, Dr. Derksen returned to Tucson as a joint tenured professor in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and the College of Medicine – Tucson.

Today, he serves the UA Health Sciences Associate Vice President for Health Equity, Outreach and Interprofessional Activities. In this role, he collaborates across the UA campus, and with stakeholders and partners statewide, to build on activities that promote health equity – including social, economic, demographic and geographic factors that affect health outcomes. 

Over his 30 years in academics, Dr. Derksen’s service, research and educational activities include collecting, translating, analyzing and reporting data to inform legislative, regulatory and program policies to improve health equity; increasing health insurance coverage; reducing the number of uninsured; narrowing health disparities; and ensuring a well-trained and distributed health workforce to meet the state’s and nation’s needs. 

For his expertise on health care policy, Dr. Derksen has been interviewed dozens of times by national and international news outlets, including U.S. News and World Report, FOX News, the Associated Press and MedPage Today. 

In a nomination letter to the UA Alumni Association, Interim Dean Irving Kron, MD, wrote, “Since our founding over fifty years ago, the UA College of Medicine —Tucson has focused on medical care in underserved populations, including border communities, Native American communities and less-developed countries. It is clear that Dr. Derksen truly believes in this mission and passes it on to our students every day.”

Dr. Derksen will be recognized on Thursday, Oct. 31 during the UA’s 2019 Alumni of the Year Awards Ceremony.  

The prestigious recognition of Alumni of the Year is bestowed on UA alumni who have uniquely demonstrated a commitment to an academic college’s success and mission through professional achievement, service or support. 

For more information about alumni affairs at the College of Medicine - Tucson, contact Jill Hall at ghall@email.arizona.edu.

Arizona is in dire need of physicians, and the need is greatest in rural areas. The Health Resources and Services Administration estimates that the state needs 563 primary care physicians to eliminate the current shortage and will need 1,941 physicians by 2030.

The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix is committed to inspiring and training medical students to one day practice in a rural setting to help underserved populations. Through the Rural Health Certification of Distinction (COD), third-year medical students can get first-hand exposure to rural health care, receive one-on-one instruction with physicians and have direct contact with patients.

“One in 10 physicians practice rural medicine, even though two in 10 Arizonans live in a rural setting,” Director of the Rural Health Professions Program Jonathan Cartsonis, MD, said. “Rural populations experience more chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer and heart disease. This is related to the fact that more elderly are living in rural communities than urban. Students need to know this. As a medical school, we have the obligation to train physicians all over the state and where they are most needed.”

The Rural Health Professions Program COD recognizes students who demonstrate a strong commitment to future rural medical practice. Students who are a part of the program have clinical exposure experiences that are outside the norms of general clinical surroundings.

In order to earn the certificate, students must model their course of study around rural health topics, including requirements like scholarly projects, on-going seminar series, recurring meetings with mentors to discuss issues surrounding rural health and a four-week summer rural pre-clinical experience. These experiences are bolstered by a minimum of 15 weeks of rural clerkship experiences from a variety of specialties.

The program had its first graduating class in 2017, and so far four students have earned the COD.

This year, five graduating students met the requirements: Lauren Dominick, Nathan Goff, Omar Hussain, Charles Smith and Michael Wasserman. They will graduate as part of the Class of 2019 during the Commencement ceremony on Monday, May 6 at 3:30 p.m. at the Orpheum Theatre, 203 W. Adams St., Phoenix.

» Read full article at the link below:

ARIZONA CAPITOL TIMES | GUEST OPINION | Heather Carter, Jim Rounds | May 2, 2019

Arizona’s doctor shortage isn’t just hurting our health. It hits our wallets, too

Anyone who has been or will be a patient should be concerned about Arizona’s severe shortage of doctors and nurses. They should also be concerned that the shortage may be limiting the state’s economic potential.

In most discussions about building a stronger Arizona economy, policymakers and economists discuss tax rates, economic development programs and regulations. But the provision of a quality health-care system is just as fundamental to economic growth.

Our concern is the current shortage of doctors and nurses across the state will eventually translate into slower economic growth. This would mean fewer new jobs being created in every county, lower levels of income for many, and a declining quality of life for residents.

How bad is Arizona’s doctor shortage?

Arizona is one of the fastest-growing states for overall population growth and at the same time, a leader in elderly population growth. This demographic, which brings retirement money to communities and buys second homes and cars and other things, will require quality health care services.

The state is also a leader in attracting new businesses and encouraging new ones to be formed. Many will locate to the bigger cities, but others will prefer a more rural lifestyle. These businesses and entrepreneurs examine a long list of community attributes, heath care quality among them, before growing roots.

The people in the trenches are seeing the same things that we are seeing as policy professionals. According to the University of Arizona Center for Rural Health, every county is experiencing a severe shortage of doctors and nurses, and increases in costs and decreases in quality.

That same policy brief indicates that Arizona ranks 44th nationally in primary care physicians at 77.9 per 100,000 population and meets just 41 percent of its primary care physician need.

How SB1354 addresses the shortage

The Arizona Legislature is considering Senate Bill 1354 to alleviate the state’s health care workforce shortage. The bill provides support for five programs — Graduate Medical Education, the University of Arizona Medical School, primary care provider loan repayment, medical student loan repayments, and nurse training. All of these programs will move the needle on the shortage.

Graduate Medical Education, commonly known as physician residencies, has not been state-funded in a decade, thus leaving matching federal funds on the table. Senate Bill 1354 will contribute $20 million, matched by approximately $47 million in federal funds — a total of $67 million would become available to the GME account.

We know the vast majority of doctors practice where they do their residency. The problem is that Arizona simply doesn’t have enough medical residencies. Only 42 percent of Arizona’s medical students remain in the state after graduation, as reported by the Association of American Medical Colleges.

But when they train in Arizona, they stay in Arizona. According to Dr. Bharat Magu, chief medical officer at Yuma Regional Medical Center, nearly all medical students who finish the hospital’s post-graduate training stay in-state, and 67 percent stay in Yuma.

We often need to be reminded how the smallest changes in our overall rate of growth, both in income and jobs, can have a dramatic impact on state and local finances.

This issue matters.

If passed, this initiative will improve the well-being, both economic and physical, of all Arizonans.

Sen. Heather Carter is vice chairwoman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.

Jim Rounds is an economist and president of Rounds Consulting Group, Inc.