Archive for Physicians Giving Back

The Praying Doctor with Mark LeQuire, M.D.

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The Praying Doctor with Mark LeQuire, M.D.

MONTGOMERY – Physicians are men and women of science. They practice the art of medicine, which means they are filled with the knowledge of biochemistry, anatomy, physiology and other sciences they apply to heal their patients’ bodies. But a patient is much more than a physical being, and so is a physician. Just ask Montgomery radiologist Mark LeQuire, M.D., FACR.

“At Baptist Health where I work there’s not a single board meeting, not a single committee meeting, not a single medical executive committee meeting that doesn’t start with a prayer,” Dr. LeQuire said smiling. Dr. LeQuire has been a member of the Medical Association’s Board of Censors for many years, and it’s difficult to think back to a time when one of those meetings didn’t begin with him leading the room in a devotional and prayer for friends and loved ones. It wasn’t always the case.

Because modern physicians are so quickly thought of as scientists who deal in hard facts drawn from what they can prove empirically, the thought of bringing faith into the treatment room is sometimes frowned upon. How can physicians also be children of faith? Better yet, how can a physician minister to a patient’s spiritual health while treating the physical being?

To know Dr. LeQuire is to know a man strong in his Catholic faith. Beneath the white coat of the physician, he wears two Christian medals – one is for his personal devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate of the Heart of Mary and the other is the medal of St. Luke, the Patron Saint of Physicians. Coming from a long line of physicians and pastors, in his heart, he seemed to be searching for a sign to marry the two.

“God created us and gave us all a talent. In the fourth grade, we had Professions Day where everybody got to dress up and come to school as what they wanted to be. I dressed up as a doctor. My friends said I did that because my father’s a physician, and I told them that really didn’t have anything to do with it. This was my calling,” Dr. LeQuire explained. “But, it is interesting if you look at the LeQuire family men from our inception in the 1700s in East Tennessee, we are all either physicians or pastors. All the physicians in that line were very strong people of faith. In the early days, there wasn’t this separation of medicine and faith. I think they had it right but didn’t know it. I don’t think there should be a separation of the two. Today our medical students aren’t being taught this in school…in fact, they’re being taught to keep the two separate. How can you separate the soul from the body when they’re the same?”

Already questioning the normal procedure for practicing medicine, it was an innocent conversation with his brother followed by “an angel” that changed Dr. LeQuire’s entire world.

His brother had finished seminary and he was about to finish medical school when the two met for dinner. His brother commented: “You’re going to heal the body, and I’ll heal the soul. That sounds pretty sweet, right?”

“I’ve never forgotten that conversation because it left me so confused. That was 39 years ago, and I’ve never forgotten it. I remembered it for a reason. It’s an act of gratitude and thankfulness and praise to our Lord and our God. It led me on a journey to where I am today,” Dr. LeQuire said.

If the conversation with his brother started Dr. LeQuire on his journey, it was a Medical Association Annual Meeting in Huntsville that sealed the deal. Passively listening to the debate concerning Obamacare during the Business Session, Dr. LeQuire noticed an older physician approach one of the microphones. Normally during an address to the House of Delegates, physicians state their name and district before making a comment. This was not a normal day.

“This gentleman approaches the microphone during the debate where everyone is discussing Obamacare and how it’s going to affect physician payments and money and so on. And, there’s this little guy at the mic. He says, ‘Excuse me, but whatever happened to the days when it was simple and physician priests took care of their patients.’” Dr. LeQuire paused a moment, his face lit up with a huge smile. “I have no idea who he was! I have never met him! He didn’t introduce himself, and I’ve never seen him again, but I’m convinced he was an angel sent there to that meeting for me! That was EVERYTHING! To this day, I still look for him. Until that moment, I was struggling with going to church on Sundays, but I can’t take my church to my work because it’s incorrect? And you can’t have God and science and you can’t be a true healer? So I decided I AM allowed to bring faith into my practice.”

While there are patients who may be agnostic or atheist, Dr. LeQuire is pretty quick to spot them when he meets with them. However, the majority of his patients are people of faith and ask him to pray for and with them.

He sees a lot of patients, and he remembers them all…but there’s one patient, in particular, Dr. LeQuire said was the “pinnacle” of his esteemed career.

The case was difficult, and the procedure was dangerous, but it would result in a cancer-free patient. He discussed the risks of the procedure with the patient and asked if he had any questions. The patient said, “No problem. We’re good to go. I’m good.” Dr. LeQuire said what gave him pause was how quickly the patient was to jump on board with the treatment plan, so he asked if he needed some time to think about the procedure, and his patient replied: “Doc, do you know why I picked you? I hear you’re the prayin’ doctor. I hear you’ll pray with me right here, before my procedure, and you’ll pray with me after my procedure. I picked you because you’re the prayin’ doctor.”

Dr. LeQuire never asks his patients to trust in him but rather to trust in God.

The journey has not been one he takes lightly or alone. He credits his bride, Gage, and mentors like Paul Nagrodski, M.D., for putting his “wheels back on the wagon.”

“Organized medicine, like being a member of the Medical Association, has been one of the greatest blessings of my life. It made me whole and complete. Come on board and find yourself. Physicians tend to get isolated by what we do every day. We need to get into organized medicine to discover ourselves. The greatest gift to me — getting into organized medicine —  was that I found myself,” Dr. LeQuire said.

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How to Have it All with Kre Johnson, D.O.

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How to Have it All with Kre Johnson, D.O.

TRUSSVILLE – Dr. Kre Johnson knows what it’s like to be stretched so thin at work and at home to the point at which more than a few things begin to fall through the cracks. It’s something most of us can relate to. Not having enough time to devote to family, friends and clearing the day’s checklist before leaving the office at the end of the day is something a lot of working parents struggle with every day. Earlier this year, this working wife and mother made a decision that not only changed her life but also her family and her patients.

Beginning Feb. 1, 2019, Dr. Johnson’s current practice, Brownstone Healthcare and Aesthetics became the third medical practice in Birmingham to see patients under a membership-based system known as direct primary care. Direct primary care members enrolling with Brownstone can pay a flat $70 monthly fee, which covers an unlimited amount of office visits with no co-pay or deductible charges. Under direct primary care, insurance is not required but is recommended in case patients wind up needing surgery or hospitalization. The practice is not 100 percent DPC-based, however. Dr. Johnson still sees Medicare patients from her previous medical practice.

Making a Change

“I’m really loving it,” Dr. Johnson said. “I’m doing what I call kind of a hybrid because I still see my Medicare patients, but I know we’re making a difference in our community. I knew the first week we made the change that it was the right thing for us to do.”

In that first week, Dr. Johnson and her staff saw a patient who presented with a large lump in his throat. The patient didn’t have insurance and had previously had some difficulty finding the best treatment for what turned out to be cancer. That patient is now on a great path to wellness, receiving good treatment and care thanks to Dr. Johnson and her staff.

“We’re able to see so many patients now without certain encumbrances, and we feel it’s been a blessing for a lot of people,” Dr. Johnson explained. “So I was like, Lord…I really feel like I need to do this. It was simple, really. Because I’m His hands and feet. I’m here to meet the needs of the people, and I know there’s a need for access to health care in this area. It’s been a good transition. I’m happy about it, and it helps me with my quality of life.”

Like many women in business, Dr. Johnson soon discovered that having it all comes with a price. Not long after she began practicing medicine, she and her husband decided to start a family, and Dr. Johnson has also been very driven to give back to her community. But, there’s just never enough time in the day.

“I was seeing in-patients and out-patients every day of the week, and then I had a baby. My husband was like, ‘Do you ever plan on being at home?’ Women are inherently driven to do so much. Soon everything at home was lacking. Changing my business model has given me a little more work-life balance. I may be on-call for my patients more, but I can still make it to the events at my daughter’s school. She asked me if I was trying to take her Daddy’s job!” Dr. Johnson laughed.

Giving Back to the Community

Switching her practice to direct primary care also gave Dr. Johnson the opportunity to fulfill her desire to work more in her community. Not only has she started a scholarship program for area high school seniors dreaming of a future in medicine, but she’s created a workshop and written a book for working women.

Dr. Johnson created the Wifeology Working Wife Retreat as an annual retreat for married professional women looking to network and find new ideas to live their best lives. The retreat is June 21-23 at the Tutwiler-Hampton Inn & Suites-Downtown Birmingham.

“As working women, we have to make time for ourselves to find our passion again. That’s what this retreat is all about,” Dr. Johnson explained. “We get together for a weekend so we can talk about our lives, rejuvenate ourselves and then go back to our lives refreshed. This is a great way to get to know women from different professional backgrounds year after year, and it turns into a kind of family reunion! I think it’s just been a kind of blessing for a lot of marriages for the women to attend to be able to say to each other that they are not alone in their struggles in finding ways to balancing a good marriage and a good professional life. We aren’t superhuman, but we like to think that we are.”

Learn More

If you would like to learn more about Dr. Johnson’s Wifeology series or to book her as a guest speaker, find her online at https://www.doctorkre.com/ and learn more about her direct primary care practice here. She’s also very active on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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Etowah County’s Physicians Who Care with Seth Spotnitz, M.D., and Matt Lovato, M.D.

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Etowah County’s Physicians Who Care with Seth Spotnitz, M.D., and Matt Lovato, M.D.

DECATUR ─ Part of the job of being a physician is to advocate on behalf of the patient. For the physicians in Etowah County who comprise the nonprofit organization known as Physicians Who Care, this isn’t just part of their job…it’s their mission.

Physicians Who Care of Northeast Alabama was founded in 1988 as a grassroots patients’ rights advocacy group. Originally, PWC was one of five physician-led patient-advocacy groups in the nation led by a national organization in response to the managed care practices of the time, according to PWC President Seth Spotnitz, M.D.

“When we first started there were groups in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Philadelphia and Detroit working to stand up for our patients,” Dr. Spotnitz said. “The national organization lasted about 10 years. They did a good job of lobbying in Washington and publishing some articles regarding national health care, but they dissolved around 2000 after the patients’ rights legislation passed. The other groups began to fade away, not seeing the need for local advocacy for patient advocates, but we did. We kept going. Since then we’ve been working in the community to improve relations with the population by doing numerous activities fundraisers.”

The Physicians Who Care of Northeast Alabama stay busy in their community. From publishing a directory as a service to the citizens of Etowah County to hosting a 5K Run/Walk each April with proceeds going to the Etowah County Cancer Foundation, the physician members of PWC work hard outside their normal business days to take care of others in their community.

One of the popular events hosted by the group is the A-Day physicals for county student-athletes. In order for students to be able to participate in school sports, they must have a physical in the spring. In 2018, the PWC physician volunteers saw 371 student-athletes during the A-Day physicals. Unfortunately, according to President-Elect Matt Lovato, M.D., this one day may be the only day a student sees a physician, so he wanted to make it count by reshaping how the group sees the students.

“We did it to where we were doing things a little bit more comprehensively. You can allow students to play sports with a pretty limited exam,” Dr. Lovato explained, “but we knew, with some of these kids, they would use this sports medical exam as a substitute for any checkup with their regular doctor. We went from doing the limited exams to doing a complete exam which made it possible for the physicians to detect more issues that we wouldn’t necessarily on a lesser exam. We can now detect things that allow us to let these students and their parents know they need to follow up with their family physicians. There’s always the possibility of catching something that could be life-threatening during one of these exams, but we haven’t yet found anything that the students and their parents weren’t already aware of, but doing more comprehensive exams allows us the opportunity to make sure these patients are healthy.”

PWC has given back to the community in so many ways during the years. From providing projecting microscopes for all the high schools in the county to hosting Thanksgiving dinners for residents who are less fortunate to raising money to help the chamber of commerce build office space, when the community calls, PWC always answers.

“One of our major accomplishments I’m most proud of is that we are responsible for the rehabilitation hospital here in town,” Dr. Spotnitz said. “We wanted and needed a rehab hospital here, so we contacted various hospitals. At the time HealthSouth seemed to be the best fit. The PWC went to the CON Commission and were able to give them the right to build here. Now it’s called Encompass, but it was a great achievement for us. We all pulled together to get them here for our patients.”

For Dr. Spotnitz, the need for local advocacy is real, and Etowah County has the power from within to fill that need. The physicians themselves have managed to propel Physicians Who Care forward for years now, and they have no plans to stop.

“We know there are organizations fighting for medicine on a national level, so that’s not our focus here,” Dr. Spotnitz said. “We have to do what we can here in our little area of the country. The bottom line is that we do all this because we believe the physician is to be the patient’s advocate right here where we can do the most good.”

If you would like to know more about Physicians Who Care and the group’s charitable work in Etowah County, check out the website at http://physicianswho.care/

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It’s Not Just About the Medicine with George Koulianos, M.D.

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It’s Not Just About the Medicine with George Koulianos, M.D.

MOBILE – The main hallway of The Center for Reproductive Medicine in Mobile is lined with photos of smiling babies. The large collages are softly lit by recessed lighting in the ceiling above each frame, and as you walk down the hallway, it’s impossible not to smile at what the physicians and staff affectionately refer to as “our angels.”

This is a place filled with dreams, hope and love, and that’s just how founder and medical director George Koulianos, M.D., likes it. With his easy smile and affable demeanor, he lights up a room whenever he walks in. This is a man whose professional accomplishments in the field of reproductive medicine have made The Center for Reproductive Medicine one of the most successful medical practices of its kind in the country.

The son of an immigrant family, Dr. Koulianos is no stranger to hard work. His father barely escaped the Greek Islands for America during World War II following 52 days and nights of constant bombings by German forces.

“I grew up working with my hands. I grew up pumping gas and fixing cars. My father wanted to make sure I hated it so much that I would study hard to make a life for myself. There’s no way I could ever begin to thank my father for the lessons that he taught me about life,” Dr. Koulianos said.

His father passed away when he was in medical school, but he would certainly be proud of his son. Dr. Koulianos isn’t just a successful physician. A few years ago he embarked on a new venture that began as a bit of a hobby for him and a summer job for his son and daughter. Little did he know just how successful or how much fun he would have being a farmer.

“I love it!” Dr. Koulianos exclaimed. “It’s amazing how many people don’t know where their food comes from. I think it’s, there’s something very spiritual about the whole thing. When you look at that little tomato seedling and think what in the world is this? Then it turns into this beautiful plant that brings forth this wonderful fruit. For me, it’s like how can you not believe in God after you see that and if you live that for a growing season. So I think it’s kind of a miracle personally.”

With more grocery stores and restaurants participating in Buy Local campaigns, small organic farms such as Dr. Koulianos’ are becoming more popular on a much larger scale, plus it means more to residents to know that their produce was grown within just a few miles of their community.

“We’ve had more people approach us about putting our products on their shelves and on their menus…at times it’s been more than we can. We’ve grown so much from what began as land for Dove hunting and hay to now supplying two of the best chefs in Mobile County and new customers in Baldwin County with our produce,” Dr. Koulianos explained.

As much fun as he was having farming with his son and daughter, Dr. Koulianos realized his little patch of heaven had a different purpose. He was already using it as a way to teach his children responsibility and life lessons about their future, but this lesson was more for him.

“I began to realize I was promoting health through nutrition…and isn’t that what a doctor is supposed to do?” Dr. Koulianos questioned. “There was major research beginning to come out about endocrine disruptors and reproduction. These endocrine disruptors that are in synthetic pesticides are really bad for us. So as the farm progressed, the literature got even stronger about the negative effects of endocrine disruptors for a whole slew of areas in health, not just reproduction, but diabetes, heart disease, and on and on. The European Union calculated the cost of endocrine disruptors on the health system in the billions of dollars. Wow! It’s become a way for me as a physician to interact with my patients in a different way. As people get more food conscious and realize what they put into their bodies, it determines what happens to their bodies. I can tell you we’ve had patients who have come to us from other fertility clinics who’ve done IVF and had terrible outcomes. We’ve told them before that if we do your IVF, this is what you’re going to do – you’re going to drop 10 or 20 pounds, you’re going to change the way you eat, you’re going to get all these carbs out of your diet, you’re going to eat these types of foods, you’re going to take certain supplements that help with fertility, you’re going to take the supplements, and then three months from now we’re going to do your IVF cycle. Nutrition really makes a difference, and they make beautiful embryos! Our patients have gotten pregnant in our program where they couldn’t get pregnant elsewhere.”

What began as a small hobby then a family tradition of passing on life lessons from father to son and finally an extension of his chosen profession, Dr. Koulianos said working his land gives him a sense of peace and is a profound experience that’s “good for the soul.” While his son and daughter have moved on, the farm continues to prosper in more ways than one.

“I think one of the great lessons we need to teach our young doctors is that you really are practicing something very special. Medicine might be science, it might be curative, but ultimately, more than anything else, it has to be healing. I really believe in the calling of medicine and in its own way, it’s its own unique ministry. My medical license is very special to me. It means I have a moral obligation to put the needs of the citizens of this state before mine. That’s what a license to practice medicine means. So a farm fits beautifully with the practice of medicine because I’m helping my patients in a different way,” Dr. Koulianos said.

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Following Your Passion with Peter Strogov, M.D.

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Following Your Passion with Peter Strogov, M.D.

FORT PAYNE – It’s not uncommon for physicians to have an unusual path to medicine. Like many professionals, not all physicians start out wanting a career in medicine but someone – or something – along the way changed their minds. That’s what happened to Fort Payne pediatrician Peter Strogov. It happened on the one day that changed the world forever.

After graduating from high school, Dr. Strogov admitted to having “absolutely zero direction” and no idea what he wanted to do with his life. He worked construction, painting, or as he put it, “everything under the sun,” before he decided to go back to school at his local community college. Headstrong and determined, his intent was to graduate and transfer to one of the most competitive four-year colleges in the country.

“The administrators told me right out of the gate that I was crazy,” he laughed. “They said nobody ever transfers to those top schools from here, but I became the first person to ever transfer to Harvard from my community college.”

At Harvard, Dr. Strogov completed his degree in economics and thought he had found his calling in the world of finance. That all changed on Sept. 11, 2001.

“My wife and I just started volunteering around the Twin Towers to help with water and food. We were really involved in the recovery efforts. During that time, reflecting on what life’s about, I found the pursuit of economics, finance and money to be actually very unimportant,” he said.

He was soon looking for a different path and found it in medicine. But finding a specialty would prove challenging.

“I was 100 percent sure I was going into surgery, without question. But something clicked when it came time for his obstetrics and pediatrics rotations, and Dr. Strogov finally found his calling.

“I love empowering parents and building rapport with them,” Dr. Strogov said. “I’m such a kid at heart that just working with kids to me is like the ultimate in not going to work every day. I get to come to work and play with kids and make them feel better. What’s a better day than that?”

Empowering parents is also part of his business model at Fort Payne Pediatrics. The clinic nestled in the heart of DeKalb County has continued to grow to a point at which a new facility is necessary and with it will come some much needed and wanted TLC for patients and their families as well. The clinic already hosts an asthma clinic, which has been tremendously successful and has opened the door for so much more such as Dr. Strogov’s Infant Safety Initiative, Diabetes Prevention initiative, and nutrition and lifestyle modification initiatives. Dr. Strogov and his staff are beginning with the basics, such as car seat safety classes and SIDS education, while future plans include a community garden and educational initiatives to improve the lifestyle of not only pediatric patients, but the community at large.

“When we move over to our next facility, we’re going to have a conference room where we can have educational classes and health fairs. We’ve already decreased ER visits from our asthmatic patients in one year. Our ER admission rates and visit rates have dropped dramatically for asthma patients because they’re much better controlled, they’re much more compliant with medications, and they understand the disease process better, so we know our education model is working. “Think what we can do for obesity if we expand this education model to a lifestyle modification clinic using the same principle?” Dr. Strogov asked. “We can educate patients and parents about nutrition, exercise and the detrimental health effects of obesity. We can track patients weight and lifestyle choices a little bit more closely and finally give the patients and families small goals to achieve while encouraging them as much as possible to reach each of those goals?”

His energy is contagious, which is just one reason why he was chosen as Alabama’s 2018 Community Star to help celebrate National Rural Health Day 2018 by the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health.

“We have really been pushing hard this past couple of years to reach out in the community and do more than just see patients. We have created partnerships in other communities to give providers ownership in clinics in rural communities. Our clinic in Fort Payne is the largest, but we have four, and we’re starting to spread our practice model around hoping we can continue to grow to cover as many rural areas as we can with at least one physician and a nurse practitioner or two in each location. It’s not easy, but we’re trying to recruit more physicians to Alabama in these rural north Alabama areas. We’ve got great hope for the future.” he said.

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Out of Chaos…Life…with John Mark Vermillion, M.D.

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Out of Chaos…Life…with John Mark Vermillion, M.D.

MONTGOMERY — The dictionary defines medical trauma as an injury to living tissue caused by an extrinsic agent. However, Montgomery trauma specialist John Mark Vermillion, M.D., has his own personal definition. He’s worked since 2005 to build the River Region’s premiere trauma center, which is located at Baptist Medical Center South. This is Alabama’s fourth largest trauma center.

“So here’s the definition of trauma I made up, and it’s kind of quirky, but it’s one of my life quotes: The unintended consequences of actions performed that supersede one’s skill level or common sense. That’s based on my own experience of taking care of a lot of traumas,” Dr. Vermillion smiled. “I have a lot of life quotes I pass along to my kids, and this is one of them.”

When he first arrived in Montgomery, even he was taken back by the fact the region did not have a trauma center. At the time, Montgomery’s hospitals rotated ERs of the day. It was an incredible strain on the professionals taking care of critical patients brought to the emergency room. It wasn’t enough.

“Our area is equivalent to downtown Baltimore, Chicago, and other high-profile metro areas in the percentage of trauma cases. Their numbers are larger, and their populations are proportionately larger to ours, but that’s still a sad statistic,” Dr. Vermillion said. “Trauma in our world is defined mainly as high-speed car wrecks and penetrating wounds such as gunshots or stabbings. Trauma in Alabama is mostly associated with gunshot wounds. Birmingham and Montgomery have the same basic population base and the same type of trauma as the larger cities in the nation that get a lot of press from it because they have such high numbers since their populations are so high. But, our percentages are right on par with Baltimore and Chicago.”

It’s easy to imagine how fast-paced it can be once a trauma rolls into the emergency room. But, that’s when this Texas native is at his best. What may look like chaos to some is fuel for Dr. Vermillion, and it pumps through his veins like quicksilver. This is what he thrives on. This is what he grew up on. This is in his DNA.

Two of Dr. Vermillion’s uncles, his father and grandfather are all physicians as well, and they all trained at the same hospital in Texas, but he said he’s a bit of the black sheep in the family.

“They all tried to dissuade me from going into medicine as a profession. They really didn’t want me to do it,” he laughed. “I’m the only one of the grandkids who became a doctor. There’re two lawyers, a rocket scientist – a legit rocket scientist – a social worker, teacher, so I’m the black sheep of the family since I’m the only doctor.”

It didn’t work, and he has his grandfather to thank for that. His grandfather was a physician in a small town and would often take him to the hospital at night so he could act as his first assistant during surgeries. At the young age of 14, the surgical procedures, blood…nothing bothered the young boy. It infatuated him.

“Oh man, I was hooked!” Dr. Vermillion said. “I definitely got the medical bug early. My grandfather also hired me one summer when I was in junior high school to put all his records on a spreadsheet. Here I was thinking there was no way I could finish that summer, but his entire records were on 5×7 cards with the patient’s name, a date stamp, vitals, diagnosis and prescription. That was his medical record for all his patients. His electronic medical record was me putting it on a spreadsheet. It took less than a month.”

Now fully entrenched, he had his mind set on a career in medicine. He planned to go to medical school, do a family practice residency, then a year of surgical training, and finally go into practice in a small town like his grandfather. But, that all changed in medical school.

“I liked the surgical procedural side of things a lot better than I liked the primary care medicine. It fit my personality a lot better. It’s high-rush, high-stakes, high-adrenaline style medicine. When I was 14 and went into that first surgery with my grandfather I thought it was awesome. Nothing about it bothered me. It was a great exposure for me at an early age,” Dr. Vermillion explained.

And the stakes are very high. Since 2005 when Dr. Vermillion and Baptist South began building the trauma center, it has grown to include a full medical team with students. The hours can be long and arduous, and the team can easily treat more than 2,000 trauma patients in a year. Dr. Vermillion has a very good memory for his patients and remembers almost every one of them, but the ones who affect him the most are children.

“Children are very hard for me. Kids get to me,” he said, patting his chest.

With a wife and children of his own at home, it’s easy to see why treating a child with a trauma could be the one thing to stop Dr. Vermillion in his tracks even for a moment. It’s also why he treasures every moment he can away from the hospital. The Vermillions have nine children, two of which are foster children.

Dr. Vermillion isn’t one to stand still very long, though. He’s part of a medical mission team through the Chikondi Health Foundation that regularly travels to Malawi where the foundation supports a hospital. While there, the team takes care of basic medical needs, but can also perform minor surgical procedures that can be life-changing for the patients. When he goes, he tries to take one of his children with him, trying to do for his children what his grandfather did for him. He’s not sure if it’s working, though. His daughter lasted only a few minutes during a procedure before going back to the orphanage.

“It’s truly a different world there,” Dr. Vermillion said. “It’s a 12-day trip, and it’s a very satisfying experience. The families and patients are so grateful. I can see the same gratefulness in these people that my grandfather did when he was treating people in the town where he lived.”

 

*Photos compliments of Baptist South and Dr. John Mark Vermillion.

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What Challenges You With Jefferson Underwood III, M.D.

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What Challenges You With Jefferson Underwood III, M.D.

MONTGOMERY — Montgomery physician Jefferson Underwood III may not move as quickly or as easily as he did a year ago, but his wit is as sharp as a tack. Just as it always has been.

“ALS is a funky disease. Every day something new comes up, a new challenge. I am challenged, but why be mad at God?” Dr. Underwood questioned. ALS, also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. “Sometimes you just wonder about the people you meet in life. Who challenges you to keep going? I had a teacher who had a cervical spinal disorder who could only move from the neck down. But, she kept going. As long as she could keep that wheelchair moving, she kept going. I may have a disability, but I’m still blessed and fortunate to be able to work. I have two nurse practitioners and that allows me to keep office hours for a few hours a day. My diagnosis qualifies me for disability, but I don’t want that as long as I can keep moving.”

Challenges in life are nothing new to Dr. Underwood. Coming of age in Montgomery during a time when segregation ruled the South certainly wasn’t easy, but he had a great mentor.

“As a child, I really wanted to be an astronaut. John Glenn was one of my first heroes. But I was told blacks could not be astronauts. It’s probably difficult for young people today to fathom that, but it was the time we lived in, and I accepted that,” Dr. Underwood said.

Soon, he began to notice what was happening in his own household. His mother was a professor at Alabama State University, and his father trained in internal medicine at the University of New York in Buffalo. His family was not like the families of many of his friends, and the more he watched his father overcome challenge after challenge to practice medicine, young Jefferson seemed destined to become a physician himself.

“My father was licensed to practice medicine in Alabama, but you have to remember this was during the height of segregation…definitely not easy times for this area. My father did his residency in internal medicine but when he came back to Montgomery, with the situation of segregation, he was not allowed to practice in the white hospitals and had to practice in the black hospital, which at the time was St. Jude. There was this one woman who was nine months pregnant who had been fired by her physician. My father was trained in internal medicine, but she called him to deliver her baby. There were no black OBGYNs, and it became a very tense situation. He had done some obstetrics during his training in New York, so he agreed. My father always told me that story, and then I had the pleasure of meeting that gentleman a few years ago. He assured me that story was indeed true,” Dr. Underwood smiled. “I think that shows the importance of having good role models in your life.”

Dr. Underwood admitted he didn’t realize the power of a strong role model until he was in early junior high school when he decided to become a physician himself. He said that was when he realized he had spent his early years watching his father struggle to overcome and persevere through some truly dark times just to be able to continue doing his job. But, it never discouraged his father, so he said it would never discourage him, either.

“Absolutely not! It encouraged me even more! That just shows the importance of having strong role models. Back then, a doctor was so much a part of the family. He did things doctors don’t do these days. He delivered a baby and took care of it to the grave. You go to the house at night during a storm because of a cold. It was before Medicare and Medicaid, so you might get paid with a ham or a turkey…whatever the family could afford,” Dr. Underwood laughed. “It always came from the heart from love.”

Looking back on nearly 40 years in practice, Dr. Underwood said he simply can’t see himself in any other career…not even being an astronaut. The practice of medicine is in his DNA, but that doesn’t mean he’s 100 percent happy with the state of the profession today.

“I never really thought maybe medicine wasn’t the right choice for me…but there were some nights before those bio-chem tests and final, you know?” he giggled. “I had to give it a question, but I never gave it a second thought. What’s discouraging is to hear so many of my colleagues who are dissatisfied with medicine now. The real question is, are they dissatisfied with the practice of medicine or are they dissatisfied within? I practiced with my father for about 10, 12 years, and he used to tell me if you don’t take care of the business of medicine, you won’t have a medicine business. The principles of medicine have not changed. The computers and technology part of medicine changes, but not the principles of medicine.”

For young physicians, Dr. Underwood offers a bit of advice: Make sure your heart is truly in the profession.

“You have to want to be a physician. It’s not what you perceive the rewards a physician will offer to you. You really have to have the heart within to be a good physician to your patients. You have to have a sincere desire to want to help others. It’s not always going to be pretty, this profession. Medical school and residency are a good filter, but it’s also an expensive filter, and that’s why you need to take every opportunity you can to decide if you really want to be a physician,” he said. “This isn’t a profession you can go into to make someone else happy. You have to make yourself happy.”

And, his best advice for all physicians? Become the voice that medicine needs to make change. That’s what he did. In April 2018 Dr. Underwood became the first African-American male to serve as President of the Board of Censors of the Medical Association. He previously served the Association as President-Elect, Secretary-Treasurer and Vice President. Dr. Underwood is a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He is a member of the American Medical Association, National Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, the Alabama Chapter of the American College of Physicians, International Society for Hypertension in Blacks, as well as the Editorial Board for the Journal of Ethnicity. He is also a member of the Montgomery County Medical Society in which he has served on the Board of Trustees and as President.

“I encourage my colleagues to get more involved with organized medicine like their county medical society, the Medical Association, and the AMA so they can help bring about change. If you don’t like what you’re seeing, then be a part of the voice and help make change. It’s amazing how politics can determine the direction of medicine,” Dr. Underwood said.

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A Promise to Help with Sandra Mathews Ford, M.D.

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A Promise to Help with Sandra Mathews Ford, M.D.

BIRMINGHAM – When Sandra Ford was just 8 years old, her father took her to the doctor. Back then, Alabama was under segregationist laws, so it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for young Sandra and her father to wait on one side of the doctor’s office from the time they walked in around 4 p.m. until after 11 p.m. But there was one time a visit to the doctor left an indelible mark on her, which not only shaped her career in medicine, but it also marked the beginning of her spiritual path.

Originally from Montgomery, Dr. Ford’s parents were school teachers in Clayton. During the week, the family would live in Alabama’s Black Belt and in Montgomery on the weekends. The family would do their best if someone got sick during the week. Health care in rural areas back then was different than it is now. It was actually worse.

“During segregation, the doctor could only take so many patients. So we sat,” Dr. Ford explained. “But, I still remember that day very vividly. I was 8 years old sitting in the doctor’s office, and there was this elderly woman just suffering sitting in the chairs with us. It seemed like they were passing her by. I couldn’t understand why no one could help her. It bothered me a lot…and then I watched her take her last breath. At the age of 8, I watched her die.”

That one visit to the doctor as a child changed Dr. Ford’s life. It planted a seed, which grew through the years. “This is how A Promise to Help started,” she said.

A Promise to Help is a nonprofit medical missionary organization founded by Dr. Ford and her husband, Henry, which is now in its 16th year. The organization serves Alabama’s Black Belt counties, including Barbour, Bullock, Butler, Choctaw, Dallas, Greene, Hale, Lowndes, Macon, Marengo, Montgomery, Perry, Russell, Sumter and Wilcox Counties.

“We’ve been to the most underserved, underprivileged and underinsured counties in this state. A Promise to Help is a volunteer-based organization whose goals are to assist in eliminating health care disparities in Alabama. We have physicians, nurses, ministers, media specialists, counselors, social workers, business leaders, skilled laborers, community activists and others all working together with one thing in mind — helping others,” Dr. Ford said.

The organization hosts volunteers worldwide who come to Alabama once a month to visit communities in the most need. There are 12 missions a year, and although the organization is designated as a nonprofit, it operates almost completely on the generosity of others by donations, not grants.

“We’re both ordained ministers, so this is a ministry for us. It’s a holistic health care initiative where we can minister to the entire body. We have a medical team, a mentoring team, a ministry team, and a team to address their immediate needs such as clothing and food. This is truly a mission of God because we don’t enjoy the benefit of grants. This is just people helping other people. This is the hand of God moving all of us. People give what they can, and we accept that to give to others,” Dr. Ford said.

Each month’s mission presents its own logistical challenges. Using Dr. Ford’s small medical practice in Birmingham as a base of operations, donations of clothing, medicine, equipment and other necessities are stored in every spare space waiting to be deployed once the location has been secured. After local county resources and ministries are contacted and a liaison is in place, it’s time to roll out the mobile health clinic.

The mobile health clinic has two exam beds and is larger on the inside than it looks from the outside. It serves a higher purpose to bring more than just needed health care and medicine to the residents of what Dr. Ford and some volunteers have come to call “Alabama’s Third World.”

“It takes us a while for us to gain the trust of the people in these communities. So many different studies and research projects have come through these areas looking for information, but these things never really touched these people’s lives. And that’s what we want to do. Believe it or not, we have no agenda. This is just something that God has put on our hearts to do…to help,” Dr. Ford said.

A Promise to Help is part of the Spirit of Luke Charitable Foundation™ cofounded by the Fords. If you would like more information about either organization, to make a donation, or to volunteer, visit www.spiritofluke.com.

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It Began with an Email with Stephen Russell, M.D.

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It Began with an Email with Stephen Russell, M.D.

LEEDS – Benjamin Franklin said, “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” For Leeds family physician Stephen Russell doing both comes naturally. As an associate professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dr. Russell is living his research for the characters he writes in his works of fiction, which are centered around Dr. Cooper “Mackie” McKay.

Dr. Russell has written and published three medical thrillers — Blood Money, Command and Control and most recently Control Group — with a fourth in the works. While he admits he has always written in some fashion, it wasn’t until he was in his residency in Cincinnati, OH, when he discovered he had a gift for the craft of storytelling. In fact, he credits the simple act of emailing with his father, who was a practicing cardiologist in Birmingham at the time, with stoking the fire of his love of weaving a good tale.

“I had been given an email address during residency and remember thinking, ‘Well, what am I going to do with that?!’” Dr. Russell laughed. “No one was really using email outside a school setting, but my father had an email address, so I used that as a way to communicate with him a good decade before cell phones were popular. Then I started to write these stories to him in my emails but completely different from an email you might think of today. I was taking all these stories that were really during an intense, emotional and academic time of my life when I was seeing new patients, learning how to treat them, and learning what being a physician was all about. I was retelling these stories of what my patients were going through, and what I was going through learning how to help them. In those emails, I was just beginning to learn how to put things together as a real story. Looking back on it now, those email stories had a character, a narrative arc, an event that happened, and the more I did them the more I realized there were patterns to my writing.”

Not only did Dr. Russell realize his love of the creative process through those early emails to his father, but he also learned just how much he enjoyed how cathartic the writing process itself could be.

Four years later, Dr. Russell began to wonder. “What if…?” Still practicing in Cincinnati, he had met hundreds of patients and had an arsenal of stories and medical scenarios. So, what next?

“I had this idea from things I had done during my residency. ‘What if?’” he wondered. “What if this particular thing happened and something bad happened as a result of it. I decided that instead of continuing to write short stories in the form of emails, I just dove in and decided it would be a fun to write a novel. I had never written a novel before. I had never taken a formal writing class before. I had taken literature classes in college, but nothing to prepare me for writing a novel.”

Dr. Russell is the first to admit writing his novels wasn’t exactly what he thought it would be. While he never expected to turn in his first draft and have it magically be published, he didn’t expect it would take 13 years from draft to publication.

“I had to figure out how to do it for myself by reading about writing great authors and trying to figure out how they wrote in order to do it well. I think if I knew now what I knew then…” he laughed. “What I didn’t expect was that I thought there was going to be this writing part of my life and this physician/professional part of my life. I expected them to be completely separate. But it was interesting to me that these two separate strands I thought were my two parallel lives were actually two parts of the same journey for me.”

As the two parts of his life began to converge, Dr. Russell said he wasn’t expecting the positive impact of being a published author would have on his patients. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

“I didn’t expect I’d be talking about writing while I was at work, or having conversations about books with my patients. Then the most amazing thing happened after my book was published. People read it! They would come in for their visits and would want to talk about the book and about writing, which was a great icebreaker. The thing I love most about writing is probably the thing I love the most about being a physician which is communication. My job as a primary care physician is to listen to my patients and interpret their stories and understand what they mean from a health standpoint. How does that story end? How can that story be changed? How can that story be interpreted for a better prognosis?

“That’s also the job of the writer…to create the story if it’s fiction or frame that story if it’s nonfiction and to package it in a way that clearly communicates whatever the writer is trying to tell. I didn’t think about it in those terms when I was writing my first novel, the second or the third, but as I started to be on the receiving end of other people reading my writing, critiquing it and giving comments, I realized that’s part of what I signed up for by entering into the arena as a writer, but it’s also what I signed up for by entering into the arena as a physician, which is just that ability to try and find a way to communicate what I’m doing clearly and try and help my patients communicate what they’re experiencing and feeling in a way that makes sense to them. That whole communication journey is what makes sense to me about why I enjoy writing but also why I enjoy being a primary care physician,” Dr. Russell said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Russell has written three medical mysteries, which you can purchase on Amazon: Blood Money, Command and Control, and Control Group. He promises Dr. Cooper “Mackie” McKay will return in the future. In the meantime, he’s working on a young adult novel in which he’s getting plenty of input and primary research from his four children.

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Just Call Her “Dr. Fun” with Lynn Batten, M.D. 

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Just Call Her “Dr. Fun” with Lynn Batten, M.D. 

MOBILE — If you happen to be wandering the halls of the University of South Alabama’s School of Medicine, hear music and someone counting to the beat…5, 6, 7, 8…it’s probably Dr. Fun and her colleagues. Dr. Fun, also known as Associate Professor of Pediatrics Lynn Batten, M.D., earned the nickname about a year ago, but what may seem like all fun and games is truly a mission from the heart to bring joy and better health to her patients and their families.

“We have so much fun doing this, but I will never forget how it all got started,” Dr. Batten explained. “To me, I feel like I’m on a mission from God. I’m just going to say it because that’s exactly what I feel like it is. Dr. Fun’s Dance Party USA may have started out as one video for just one patient, but it’s so much bigger and has touched so many more lives.”

It all began with one patient. A 5-year-old little girl named Synclaire had captured the heart of Dr. Batten and her staff. Synclaire had only one ventricle and had already experienced three surgeries and pretty much every complication possible in her short life by the time Dr. Batten sent her to UAB to be wait-listed for a heart transplant. Eleven weeks later, Sinclair was still waiting. The days grew long and the nights longer.

“Her mother would check in with us every now and then, and we would call her and see how things were going. One day, her mother said she really needed a smile, so I asked what her daughter’s favorite song was because we wanted to make a dance video for her,” Dr. Batten said. Armed with Bruno Mars’ “24K Magic” and her son’s talents at filming for YouTube, Dr. Batten and her staff choreographed their first dance video. It wasn’t very long, perhaps only 90 seconds, but all the staff who had worked with and gotten to know little Synclaire had a chance to dance for her.

As Dr. Batten’s son was working to edit the video to post online, the physicians at UAB called. Synclaire wasn’t doing well, but word spread like wildfire about the video the USA team was putting together for her. Dr. Batten’s mission was to have the video posted that evening. At that point, she said her greatest fear was that little Synclaire would pass away before seeing it.

“I was on my way across the bay to a dinner meeting thinking all these things like I hoped she likes it, I hope it makes her and her family smile, and then something just hit me — what if she doesn’t get to see it? What if she dies before we can get this online for her? That was the most horrible feeling! But, that entire drive made me realize there are so many other kids out there who might like to see their doctors dancing around and having a little fun. We could do videos for kids in the hospital and they could leave comments for us like who they would like to see in our next video. All these thoughts just started pouring out about what we could do next,” Dr. Batten said.

Dr. Batten emailed Synclaire’s mother the link to the video that night. The UAB staff called her at 10 the next morning to let her know Synclaire had coded. She was on life support for about a week before she passed away. She said there was an urgency that night to upload the video that she couldn’t quite understand until she received that phone call.

“Her mother told me later that Synclaire did see it and it ‘made her heart shine.’ I don’t know what that means but this is why I truly feel like this is my mission from God,” Dr. Batten said.

After that first video, Dr. Fun’s Dance Party USA was officially born with an expanded mission to not only help her young patients by lifting their spirits during long hospital stays but to also motivate them to move and exercise to stay healthy. The staff who participate in the videos have had so much fun that they continue dancing on their breaks after they’ve seen what moving during the day can do for their health as well.

“We’re going to keep this going!” Dr. Batten laughed. “There are other kids that might get some joy from watching their physicians and medical staff dance around for a couple of minutes, plus it’s worth it if it brings our patients just a little bit of joy. We want the kids to make requests so we can keep going forward. One of our patients requested ‘Shake It Off’ by Taylor Swift because she wanted something more upbeat to have on her phone so she could stay on her treadmill a little longer each day. That was a lesson for me, too. So now when I tell patients they have to exercise more, I ask what their favorite song is. Two patients have asked to be in the videos with us, and that makes it even more special for us as a staff!”

If you’d like to get your groove on with Dr. Batten, check out her YouTube channel, Dr. Fun’s Dance Party USA. Log in to leave comments or even make a request!

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