Hello KAN members and friends! Welcome to the midsummer’s KAN newsletter!
Dr. Shalash and the Third stage of a Career
I recently had the opportunity to sit for a spell with Dr. Amina Shalash, a standing board member for the Kentucky Ambulatory Network and now president‑elect of the Kentucky Academy of Family Physicians (KAFP). Dr. Shalash is a solo family medicine physician at Winchester Family Practice, a rural health clinic. Reflecting on her career, she likes to divide it into thirds: “The first third was training to become a doctor,” she said. “The second third was complaining about the problems in the system. This third is spending my time doing something about it.”
That philosophy has shaped her vision for the KAFP: advocacy. In February, she joined a group of family physicians to meet with state legislators for “A Day at the Capitol” to educate and advocate for their patients. In June, Dr. Shalash and a KAFP delegation joined more than 300 family physicians for the Family Medicine Advocacy Summit in Washington, D.C., where physicians met directly with federal legislators to discuss the challenges facing primary care. Those conversations are especially urgent as physicians—particularly those in rural areas—grapple with the fallout of recent federal policy changes and state cuts to Medicaid funding.
Fitting for this emphasis is a talk entitled “From the Bedside to the Capitol: Advocacy in Medicine” by Melonie Proctor, DO, FAAFP, slated for presentation at the KAFP’s Scientific Assembly, which takes place October 2–3 in Lexington. Other talks will address the theme of combating misinformation in family medicine.
As Dr. Shalash begins her leadership journey with the KAFP, we discussed opportunities to strengthen partnerships with the KAN and its mission as a Practice‑Based Research Network (PBRN). Stronger collaboration between the two organizations can help connect community clinics with quality‑improvement initiatives while creating meaningful learning opportunities for students interested in primary care—and a bridge to do that work in rural communities. If the first third of a career is learning how to be a physician, then Dr. Shalash is doing the hardest part now: helping build a better system for the physicians who come after us
Thanks for speaking with me, Dr. Shalash!
- Karen L. Roper, Ph.D.,
KAN Director
Research. Collaborate. Transform
Noting this header by our logo on the first page, the KAN takes seriously its mission to facilitate research and quality improvement transformations. The heart of it – the middle word and the most important of all – is collaboration. The continued work to maintain and to form new collaborative connections across Kentucky’s primary care clinics and workforce is at the core of our mission and requires tremendous effort that is often limited by KAN’s resources. Included in this is the following efforts. We thank you for your participation in our outreach.:
- this newsletter and our LinkedIn promotions
- visits to clinics across the region to learn of KAN member interests and share opportunities
- meeting you and possible new collaborative partners at conference locations (KAN has been a non-profit vendor supporting several regional conferences across the last several years)
- attend and present at regional conferences, putting a face to our organization to potential new member sites, including representing KAN at the North American Primary Care Research conference where PBRNs meet and share best practices.
- working with partner organizations to link our efforts in QI, research, and student involvement in coordinated efforts, as through the KAFP and the below connection events. COME FIND US if you are in attendance!
Recent & Upcoming KAN Collaborative Connection Events
KAN director Dr. Karen Roper represented KAN at the annual Appalachian Research Day held in Corbin, KY where she connected with the new KAN members within both Appalachian Regional Health [ARH] system and Russell County hospital. WELCOME!
When not overseeing our vendor table, she also helped prepare two student mentees, medical student Grace McDougall and undergraduate pre-medical student Evan Murray in their presentation on screening for adverse childhood events across Appalachian visitors to UK primary clinic. Also, as incoming chair of ATRN's Research and Education Committee, she is working on ways that help foster research and community-academic partnerships across Appalachia and its academic institutions. This partnership can bring a multi-institution opportunity to facilitate the opportunities for KAN research projects. Currently, the committee is reviewing abstracts submitted to the upcoming (Oct 12-13) Summit, with the theme of “Translating Research to Strengthen Health for Appalachia”.
Locally, along with Dr. Key Douthitt of the UK North Fork Valley Community Health Center will join a panel to discuss their work to deliver and evaluate a telehealth training curriculum at the Hazard, Ky residency training site. This event on Oct 1 will bring together healthcare professionals, community partners, policymakers and innovators who are committed to advancing rural telehealth.
Engagement in Research: Environmental Health
Identifying Climate Health Priorities Through Community and Clinician Engagement in Rural Kentucky and Vermont
DID YOU KNOW?: Vermont (VT), the most rural state in the nation, and Kentucky (KY), ranked tenth, contain the nine U.S. counties with the highest incidence of federally declared natural disasters -each experiencing more than a dozen events- since 2011. This frequency is four to five times greater than the national average. Eight of the nine counties are in Kentucky. A comparison of the counties within which we will focus this work is shown below.
KAN is very pleased to announce we, along with partnering PBRN the Northern New England COOP have been selected for funding through PCORI (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute)‘s Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award Program.
- Led by Karen Roper, Ph.D., the aim is to work as a community-based participatory research team – engaging rural clinicians, patients, and community partners – in structured bidirectional discussions and convenings around regionally relevant climate-related health concerns. Our aim is to identify priority climate health topics and then co-develop a research agenda focused on climate and health priorities in rural primary care.
- This project will help develop a skilled community of patients, caregivers, clinicians and other stakeholders who are better equipped to engage as partners in all phases of patient-centered research.
If you reside or practice in Perry County, KAN would LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. We are seeking clinician and community perspectives on climate-related health impacts, concerns, and priorities through surveys and structured engagement activities beginning in August! If interested, send us an email at KAN@uky.edu.
Spotlight: Dr. Larry Oteham
KAN is grateful for his many years of service!
Dr. Larry Oteham currently runs his own practice out of Somerset, KY where his care centers on osteopathic rehabilitation, treating acute injuries and some chronic conditions. He began his career in chiropractic medicine, where he dedicated 10 years, but the bulk of his career has been in primary care. In his current 25 years of practice as a primary care physician, he has had over 600 medical students rotate with him. His passion for growing the next generation of primary care workforce is what connected Dr. Oteham with the Kentucky Ambulatory network. During his time as faculty at The University of Pikeville, our previous KAN director, Dr. Roberto Cardarelli, connected with Dr. Oteham on his quest to develop a relationship with UPike's school of osteopathic medicine. Dr. Oteham reflected fondly on his time with KAN, specifically an initiative involving SOAR, a non-profit driving growth and development in eastern Kentucky. For this initiative, KAN worked with ophthalmologists who developed a workflow for primary care providers and pharmacists to perform a retinal scan on their patients with diabetes, referring to ophthalmology when patients screened positive for diabetic retinopathy. Dr. Oteham has always had interest in keeping pace with advancing technology, to include recent AI developments like FREED an assisted record keeping program. See our new standing section on advancing technology on page 5.
Additionally, Dr. Oteham was a driver in the KAN Registry initiative. Several years ago, KAN clinics were asked to keep registry cards inviting their patients to join a long-standing registry to be contacted for future studies. While this registry project collected demographic information, it was novel in its approach as it also requested that registering patients inform us of research areas that they would be most interested in. Past KAN Coordinators would physically collect participant responses from participating clinics, manually entering their information into an electronic repository approved by UK’s IRB. KAN is now working to bring the registry into the digital age by revamping the initiative to be completely electronic. Stay tuned for updates we will share in our fall newsletter!
UK Undergraduate & Medical Students Researching in Rural Areas
Studying the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on health in adults
Peyton 'Trey” Coburn, a medical Student hailing from Ashland, Ky., has a passion to bring healthcare and research to Kentucky's rural populations. From this passion, he decided to act as principal investigator for his own study Adverse Childhood Experiences in Appalachia. This is a survey-based study that recruits participants from UK's Turfland Family Medicine Clinic, characterizing rural participants using childhood zip code. To further his research, Trey elicited help from other medical and undergraduate students, some of which went on to present ACES research at conferences; Evan Murray joined medical student Lydia 'Grace' McDougal during the recent Appalachian Research Day on an ACES panel.
The study is expanding to better engage current rural residents by extending recruitment from UK's Turlfand Family Medicine Clinic into Appalachian Regional Health (ARH) Family Medicine clinic in Grace's hometown of Whitesburg, Ky. KAN is proud to support these students' growth as professionals while nurturing their ability to give back to the rural communities that shaped them and to which they may someday return to contribute their training and skills.
Emerging Technology
FREED AI
As mentioned in our spotlight with Dr. Larry Oteham, he discussed his use and the benefit of FREED AI in his practice. FREED is an assisted record keeping program that is HIPAA compliant and can be used for multiple specialties including Family Medicine. Dr. Oteham specifically values the summary feature, where this AI tool generates a brief summary for him, highlighting the patient's chronic conditions, health concerns, and where they left off at their last appointment. This summary helps Dr. Oteham optimize his time with each patient while reinforcing his investment in their health through knowledge and preparedness. Find out more on FREED by visiting their webpage!
KAN Memberships
Reach out about anything in this newsletter, to schedule a KAN visit to your clinic, or any other needs you may have!
KAN engages clinics and providers where they are. If you are not yet on our books, we would be happy to make the trip to your clinic to discuss KAN or lend any resources! See more information on what KAN can do for you on our webpage and contact us at KAN@uky.edu for your research needs!
If you are a member and have not yet completed our Members Form, Please Click this link to fill out our members form. This form gives KAN crucial data about your interest areas. Complete our membership form allows KAN to be more responsive to your needs and keep you in mind as we become aware of research opportunities that are in line with your interests!
Additionally, we have a separate from to join KAN as an Organization, which can be completed by clicking this link! Joining as an organization allows KAN to better understand the macro needs of your practice and better serve as your liaison to all things research!
Join our LinkedIn Groups!
LinkedIn Groups intend to allow members to continue connections/collaborations through discussions, polls, opportunities for research, CEU’S and to keep members up to date on KAN events. Please note, research opportunities will be posted exclusively on the private research group. All other described posts can be found on KAN's public page which can be accessed by non-members!
