VCU news

By Anne Dreyfuss
C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research

In order to best care for patients, physicians should learn about their patients’ communities and take the time to first care for themselves, Jeannette South-Paul, M.D., told a room of about 50 Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine students and faculty at the seventh annual Clancy A. Holland Lecture last week.

We are here to take care of communities.

The lecture, titled “Caring for Community, Caring for Ourselves,” was part of the VCU School of Medicine’s national primary care week observance from Oct. 3 to Oct. 8. Other primary care week events included a lecture on children’s health disparities in rural Honduras and a series of interactive pediatric care workshops.

“We are here to take care of communities,” South-Paul said. The professor and chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is one of a small number of African-American medical school department chairs nationwide. She is a widely recognized speaker and author on topics including cultural competence in medical education and the impact of race, ethnicity and culture on health.

During her speech, South-Paul discussed community-defining characteristics and encouraged students to develop cultural proficiency.

“Our goal should be to develop mutually beneficial partnerships so that we can better serve our patients,” she said. “We are in a service discipline. We have to realize that there are historical hurts and different cultural mixes. If we do not understand those things then quality of care suffers.”

South-Paul also spoke about the impact that neighborhood poverty and residential segregation had on health. “Socioeconomic disparities govern a lot of what we see happening in health,” she said.

In the second half of the lecture, South-Paul advised the room of medical students to practice self-care throughout their careers. “We are juggling multiple priorities and in the process of trying to meet the needs of the community, usually what takes second place is caring for ourselves.”

South-Paul encouraged students to remember to care for themselves first. “If you do not first take care of yourselves, then you will not be able to meet the needs of those who you have been assigned to serve,” she said.

Second-year medical student Madeline Underwood, who attended the lecture, said South-Paul’s advice echoed much of what she has been learning in her classes. “We have a longitudinal course that explores how physicians interact with communities and patients,” Underwood said. “This speech touched on some things that we have discussed in that course and enhanced that material.”

 

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