After Randi McCallian graduated college with a degree in psychology and a minor in biology, she married her love of science with service and began working with young children on the autism spectrum, providing in-home and community-based behavioral therapy. 

It was work that ultimately drove her to study maternal child health.

“I often heard parents talk about their pregnancy and birth and postpartum experiences and comment how challenging the ‘systems’ had made their situations,” said McCallian, who graduated from the USF College of Public Health (COPH) with an MPH in maternal and child health in 2013. “They had ultrasounds that led to invasive tests, and tests that led to fear about possible problems with the pregnancy. In nearly every case, a healthy baby was born, but often with significant birth interventions, such as inductions and cesarean sections that the parents felt were unnecessary.”

McCallian grew increasingly more interested in maternal care and began training to be a labor doula. “I learned that just providing a comforting presence alone was enough to improve outcomes and make the birth experience better for the family,” said McCallian, who has been a doula now for the past 10 years.

McCallian said having a bird’s-eye view of health care led her to see problems with it. 

“I worked with a new mom who felt her negative birth experience was because she was a teen mom who needed a cesarean,” McCallian noted. “I saw the number of appointments—from seeing the pediatrician to getting breastfeeding support—she was required to attend, using public transportation with a newborn, in order to keep her WIC food stamps and other social services. She had to put in so much effort to stay afloat instead of resting and connecting with her baby. I felt frustrated right along with her.”

That frustration led McCallian to pursue her MPH at the COPH, in part because of its strong focus on maternal and child health. While a student, she racked up a long list of accomplishments, serving as president of the Maternal and Child Health Student Organization, being inducted into the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health, receiving a Maternal and Child Health Leadership Trainee Scholarship and working with the Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative (FPQC).

It was her work with the FPQC that led McCallian to become an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, after which she took a position providing birth, postpartum and breastfeeding education to community health workers with MHP Salud. MHP Salud is a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening underserved Hispanic and Latino communities by improving access to health care and social services.

“I loved creating access to more downstream providers who work within their own communities,” McCallian said. “My favorite part of the job was organizing and co-teaching peer counselor training for members of the farm-working communities the program served.”

McCallian, now a mom of two and living in rural Missouri, says it’s the advocacy portion of public health she’s leaning heavily on these days as she campaigns for a seat in the U.S. Congress (the election is coming up in November).

“I learned in my public health classes that advocacy is an important component of the work public health professionals do,” McCallian, who lost a state senate election in 2020, said. “We work in a field that encompasses so many who cannot advocate for themselves. It’s our role to speak up for them at every level of policy.”

McCallian said she’s focusing her campaign on what she knows best—the issues of mothers, children and families, raising awareness about infant mortality, childhood hunger and equitable access to health care, among other things.

“It’s important that people with experience and background in public health get engaged in our government at all levels,” she emphasized. “I hope I can help more people see a path for themselves in government.”

Alumni Fast Five

What did you dream of becoming when you were young?

Someone who makes people’s lives better.

Where can we find you on the weekends?

With my family, campaigning, or reading a book with a cat in my lap.

What is the last book you read?

“Dirt Road Revival,” by Chloe Maxmin and Canyon Woodward

What superpower would you like to have?

The ability to heal.

What’s your all-time favorite movie?

“Practical Magic.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

The post From labor doula to lactation consultant to legislator? COPH grad runs for Congress appeared first on College of Public Health News.

A pipeline training program (PTP) is a step in the right direction toward diversifying the representation of professionals working in the field of maternal and child health (MCH), according to new research published by USF College of Public Health’s Dr. Anna Torrens Armstrong, associate professor.  

In “An Overview of an Undergraduate Diversity MCH Pipeline Training Program: USF’s Train‑A‑Bull,” published in Maternal and Child Health Journal, Torrens Armstrong outlines how an undergraduate PTP designed to guide underrepresented minorities into MCH-related health professions will contribute to a diverse workforce that can “improve health outcomes for all women/mothers, children and their families, including fathers and children with special health care needs.”

The USF College of Public Health’s MCH Train-A-Bull program is a didactic, experiential, mentoring and peer exchange training program designed for undergraduate students from backgrounds that are economically and educationally disadvantaged as well as racially/ethnically diverse.

Originally funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau within the Health Resources and Services Administration, the program aims to increase the diversity of the MCH workforce by supporting scholars who seek graduate training in MCH and health-related fields.

Awardees of the training program receive academic, financial and other assistance.

“The research has demonstrated that diversity among the workforce in general is important. If your health care comes from someone who you can relate to, you are going to be more open and receptive to it. If MCH policies are written by people who understand your lived experiences, those policies are going to be more reflective of them,” Torrens Armstrong said.

At time of publication, the MCH Train-A-Bull program had mentored 35 students, with 51.4 percent of them being first-generation college students and 74.3 percent coming from economic hardships (such as using a PELL grant or FAFSA). A third of those students ultimately enrolled in health-related graduate studies and half joined the MCH workforce, according to Torrens Armstrong.

“There are very few articles written that document pathway programs specifically in the field of MCH,” Torrens Armstrong said. “The dissemination of the outcomes from MCH diversity pathway training programs contribute to the knowledge and evidence base of best practices for future programs to consider.”

For Armstrong, this PTP program highlights the impact of mentorship.

“We are not all at the same place when it comes to making decisions about our educational pathway, so when a program can be intentional and take this into consideration, it really helps in offering the right opportunities to meet students where they are at that point in time,” she said.

“My favorite experience [was] participating in the Title V internship program at the Tennessee Department of Health. Being able to learn how to conduct qualitative research at a state agency and improve women’s population health from a public health perspective have provided profound insight on my future career aspiration as a physician,” said Train-A-Bull scholar Jennifer Ming Yin Su, who graduated with her BS in biomedical sciences in 2021.

MPH alumna Chedeline Apollon, a first-generation college student, said the program helped connect her many “influential leaders in maternal and child health and their research.”

“Dr. Rachel Logan has been by far the most invaluable resource to me offered by the MCH Pipeline program. She has not only assisted me throughout my time in the USF BSPH program but, when I was accepted in the MPH program at USF, she continued to mentor me and is a mentor to me presently. I owe a large portion of my success to her and my connection to her was through this program,” Apollon said.

The USF Train-a-Bull program is soon to open applications for a new summer 2022 cohort. Interested students may complete a brief questionnaire to receive an application to apply.

“We are re-invigorating our program with a focus on social justice so that as we continue to build MCH scholars, we will do so with an intentional focus on the role of social justice in how we deliver curriculum, training and opportunities,” Torrens Armstrong said. “The goal is to develop scholars that not only reflect the populations they serve, but also have training to understand and address the roots of the health inequities we see in our nation among MCH populations.”

Torrens Armstrong also said the program will be rebranded as the MCH Scholars for Social Justice Undergraduate Pathway Program. Learn more about the program here.

Related research:

Success of Maternal and Child Health Pipeline Training Programs: Alumni Survey Results

Maternal and Child Health Pipeline Training Programs: A Description of Training Across 6 Funded Programs

 Story by Anna Mayor, USF College of Public Health

The post Diversifying the maternal and child health workforce appeared first on College of Public Health News.

Each year the USF College of Public Health’s (COPH) Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health chooses six graduate students to become MCH Student Leadership Scholars.

Despite the pandemic, the scholars pressed on, taking part in a specialized curriculum and individualized, professional-development activities, albeit all remotely.

But that virtual format had its perks, say both program organizers and student scholars.

“The remote delivery of the leadership meetings and seminars allowed all COPH students, faculty, staff and community partners to take part, increasing the reach to over 50 attendees for many sessions,” said Dr. Cheryl Vamos, a COPH associate professor and director of the Center. “And the pandemic was a real-life case study like no other, underscoring the unique health and development needs of those most vulnerable—including women, children and families.”

First-year MPH student and MCH Scholar Isabela Solis agrees that the remote format had its advantages.

“For me, having this experience remote was a wonderful thing,” she said. “I took all that I learned and looked at how I can apply it in the city where I am from and from where I did the program. That was a unique advantage.”

The goal of the MCH Student Leadership Scholars program, according to its grant proposal, is “to develop an emerging group of highly skilled and diverse MCH leaders to achieve optimal MCH outcomes and to advance MCH education, science and practice.”

Each year in the early summer, says Dr. Abraham Salinas-Miranda, associate director of the Center, the college puts out a call for scholars, who begin the program in the fall. The benefits, both he and Vamos say, are severalfold and include:

• Individualized leadership plans
• Mentoring
• Research internships
• Leadership meetings with MCH and other public health leaders at local, state and national levels
• Seminars across several topics (e.g., health literacy, conflict management, cultural competency, etc.)
• Professional development opportunities
• Networking
• Tuition waiver and stipend

“The goal of the progam is to grow students into leaders dedicated to improving health among women, children, families and communities,” said Vamos, who is also an alumna of the COPH. “There is also a special emphasis on decreasing health disparities and improving health equity.”

Haley Maxwell, a graduating MPH student, found the hands-on experience and close mentoring of particular value.

“One of the major highlights of this experience was being able to engage with community organization leaders through the help of my faculty mentor, Dr. [Ronee] Wilson,” Maxwell said. “It was insightful to learn how quality improvement, grants, IRB [Institutional Review Board] proposals and program evaluations are carried out in a real-life setting. The advantage of the program is being able to work with a faculty mentor whom I look up to. I was always amazed at the work Dr. Wilson had done, so I felt incredibly fortunate when we were matched for this program.”

Medinah Nabadduka, a second-year MPH student, appreciates the leadership experience the program has given her.

“Through the MCH Scholar program, I have learned different leadership skills from successful leaders in the MCH field,” Nabadduka said. “My biggest takeaway from the leaders is that it is always important to make people the top priority, then everything else will take care of itself. Another key takeaway is to be humble and to learn from others. Before participating in the MCH Scholar program I was uncomfortable with the thought of being a leader because I like to work behind the scenes. But now I view a leader as someone who serves as a guide and who [considers] everyone’s best interest.”

You can learn more about this year’s cohort of MCH Scholars here. The COPH community is also invited to the scholars’ final presentation celebration, accessible via Microsoft Teams, on Friday, May 14, from 2-4 p.m.S

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Publc Health

The post MCH Student Scholars soar, despite pandemic, remote learning and virtual events appeared first on College of Public Health News.

Jennifer Ming Yin Su, a USF College of Public Health Maternal Child Health Pipeline Training Program (MCH PTP) scholar, recently participated in a virtual internship with the Tennessee Department of Health, all while working from her home in Hong Kong. 

She said the internship, hosted by the National MCH Workforce Development Center, allowed her, “to identify barriers and challenges a population encounters that prevents them to access certain resources, thereby contributing a large effect to the health of the population in the long-run.”

The focus on her virtual internship was to conduct a qualitative evaluation of the state-funded tobacco cessation program for pregnant women, Baby and Me Tobacco Free (BMTF), which included drafting key informant interviews, participant focus group questions, and post-program survey questions.

“I also developed a cost-saving estimate for the BMTF program by referencing other estimates from other states,” she said. “It is very important not only to address the individual health issues that pregnant women are facing, but, most importantly, to integrate these indicators to the population level of pregnant women.”

The virtual nature of the internship allowed Ming Yin Su to work remotely from her home in Hong Kong, but that didn’t come with some challenges.  

“Given the time zone difference and the internship being conducted virtually, it was a challenge for me to delegate the work between my team and submit the tasks on time to my preceptor,” she said. “However, this unique experience has definitely enhanced my skills in effective communication when allocating the tasks among interns and discussing the details of the work at designated times. It certainly paves a path for me to experience what it is like to be a global public health care professional.”

Ming Yin Su, who completed the MCH PTP Scholars program in November, is also a senior majoring in biomedical sciences and is set to graduate in fall of 2021. She said she hopes to specialize as an OB/GYN medical doctor.  

The MCH PTP program, also known as MCH Train-A-Bull, is a HRSA-funded program housed in the COPH’s Chiles Center that recruits, mentors, trains, guides and supports undergraduate students who seek graduate training in a variety of health-related fields.

Each year, 12 undergraduate students across USF are selected into this competitive program to complete a specially designed two-year curriculum. The goal of this program is to contribute to a trained, diverse workforce who is competent and passionate in improving health and reducing health disparities, ultimately combating the pervasive MCH challenges encountered in Florida and the U.S. 

Ming Yin Su said she enjoyed being an MCH PTP Scholar, especially for the research opportunities.

“This program has opened multiple doors of opportunities to me that I would not be able to have if I weren’t an MCH PTP Scholar,” she said. “During the first year of the program, our program coordinator provided monthly updates on the different research opportunities posted on Canvas. These research opportunities have spanned within a broad spectrum ranging from different fields and nature of the research.”

She even credits the program for connecting her to her first internship opportunity at Moffitt Cancer Center in tobacco research and intervention.

“I have also had the golden opportunity to conduct research on a topic that I am interested in with my mentor that was paired by the program. We had the chance to design a poster study and did a virtual poster presentation on my research question,” she said. “Not to mention that the Title V Internship program was also one of the opportunities that was promoted by the MCH PTP Scholars program. I couldn’t have thought of another program that would have given so much support to the student’s interests and provided so much guidance along the way as an emerging health care professional. This has enriched my exposure to different fields of research and has provided me invaluable insights on my future career aspiration.”

To learn more about the MCH PTP Scholars program, visit the program website.

Story by Anna Mayor, USF College of Public Health

The post MCH Train-A-Bull scholar Jennifer Ming Yin Su’s internship is a virtual voyage across countries appeared first on College of Public Health News.

If you explore the field of public health, you’ll notice that many of the statistics used to represent the health of nations involve mothers and children. And for good reason. The health of individuals and families is vital to the health of the larger communities in which they live.

In light of this, the USF College of Public Health (COPH) has instituted a Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Pipeline Training Program, led by program coordinators Drs. Anna Torrens Armstrong and Charlotte Noble. It’s a two-year program aimed at recruiting and training a diverse, culturally competent and passionate group of students to specialize in the maternal and child health field. It focuses on teaching students how to combat health disparities and pervasive maternal and child health issues in Florida and throughout the rest of the world.

The program, which was started at USF in 2016, expanded the continuum of MCH training available at USF that includes graduate, post-doctoral and workforce training. The MCH Pipeline is open to students of all majors and requires participants to take two courses: one focused on maternal and child health and the other focused on health disparities and social determinants of health.

In addition to these courses, MCH Pipeline scholars get the opportunity to shadow or intern with local maternal and child health professionals, participate in summer training sessions that help guide them toward future career paths, and work with graduate students and faculty mentors on research and public health topics of interest.

“[We] think the value of the undergraduate MCH Pipeline Training Program is the ‘inside’ access and competitive edge it gives first-generation students to further training in graduate and professional programs,” said Armstrong and Noble. “Through didactic training, experiential learning and one-on-one mentoring, the program pulls back the curtain on what is often referred to as ‘the hidden curriculum’ of higher education that can create disparities in educational and professional trajectories for minority, first-generation and economically disadvantaged students.”

Casey Morocho, an undergraduate psychology major who recently completed the program, believes the experience gave her a better grasp of the generational issues she hopes to address as a future professional in the field.

“I learned how much the health of our parents affects our health outcomes, which continues to affect future generations,” said Morocho. “Understanding and learning more about different aspects of MCH can help break the cycle of preventable and negative health outcomes, such as type 2 diabetes.”

Morocho, a first-generation student who is very grateful for the sacrifices her parents and family made for her to attend school, was, in part, attracted to the MCH Pipeline Program because of its focus on families. She also appreciated how it ties in with all aspects of mental and physical health.

Morocho admits that she was somewhat nervous about starting the program since it takes a full two years to complete, but ultimately she found it was well worth her time.

“I was anxious about the length of the program when I first applied, but I soon started wishing it was longer because it became one of the best experiences in my college journey,” said Morocho.

Morocho particularly valued the monthly seminar meetings with program leadership and USF faculty. In these meetings, students and faculty discuss a variety of public health topics, ranging from maternal and child health issues to mental health/illness. The latter discussion is what led Morocho to her desired field of clinical psychology.

“I think [the meetings] were the best part of the program because they made me realize that I had a great interest in public health,” said Morocho. “After a couple of meetings and talks with my mentors, I decided to pick up a minor in public health. I’m really grateful to this program for helping me realize what I want to do in the future.”

Morocho plans to attend graduate school and pursue a doctorate degree in clinical psychology. Afterward, she intends to work as an agent of change for mothers and children in Hispanic communities. “I want to become a clinical psychologist and work with Hispanic women and children who need help with long-term mental illnesses,” said Morocho. “I hope my career will take me abroad to work with programs and organizations that want to address mental health needs.”

Story by Cody Brown, USF College of Public Health

The post A pipeline to public health: COPH program cultivates future maternal & child health professionals appeared first on College of Public Health News.

Angela Makris, a December USF College of Public Health (COPH) grad who received her MPH with a concentration in social marketing, says that from the time she was a child, she knew she always wanted to help people.

And she hasn’t stopped since.

Born in Sydney, Australia, to Greek parents, Makris got her BA in communications from Australia’s Macquarie University and later earned a master’s in marketing management.

She started out her public health career in Australia, working as a marketing manager for a water association that advocated for sustainable drinking habits in Sydney. She followed that up with a series of jobs, the first working at an advertising agency promoting public health and behavior change issues, then a government agency that focused on preventing child abuse and getting kids into foster care. Curious about her heritage, she wound up in Greece, working in health communications and medication compliance.

Makris moved to Tampa in 2015 with her husband, who had a business here. She knew if she wanted to continue working in a public health capacity, she would have to learn how the American health care system works.

She decided to go back to school as a “mature student” and the USF COPH, she said, was an obvious choice.

“Even though I did my coursework online, one of the main reasons I chose USF was because it was local. When it comes to health care, every state has its own set of rules and funding issues,” Makris said. “I knew that if I was going to live and work in Florida, I’d have to learn how the Florida system operates.”

Another reason the USF COPH was a top pick was its social marketing program, led by Dr. Carol Bryant (now retired). “I had been following her work as a subscriber to the Social Marketing Quarterly for many years,” Makris said. “I was so excited to have her as a teacher.”

Makris, in fact, was the recipient of the inaugural Carol A. Bryant Social Marketing Scholarship for outstanding academic achievement and leadership within social marketing.

Angela Makris, MPH, stands with the poster she presented at this year’s European Social Marketing Conference, held in Belgium. “Having my poster accepted was recognition of all the work and effort that I have put into my degree and the support given to me by the COPH faculty,” the recent grad said. (Photo courtesy of Makris)

Even though there wasn’t a language barrier, Makris—who works at the COPH as a grad assistant in the Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health—does note that cultural differences did, at times, make her work challenging.

“In addition to some spelling differences [colour vs. color, recognise vs. recognize], which gave me problems when I was proofreading, Australia doesn’t really focus on race,” she explained. “We deal with people’s ethnic backgrounds. So a lot of my thinking is shaped this way, and it is in stark contrast to the very rigid race construct that exists here when looking at solving public health problems.”

Makris hopes to continue her public health education with a PhD from the USF COPH. “I want to continue my work in social marketing and research the health disparities of people with disabilities. Ultimately I’d like to develop public health curriculums that decrease stigma for people with disabilities, who are the largest minority group in the U.S. I want to help people treat others better and be better advocates for themselves and their health.”

Read more about Angela Makris’ public health journey and work here.

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

The post Bull from Down Under focuses on those who are disabled and medically underserved appeared first on College of Public Health News.

Twelve undergraduate students from various colleges across USF have been accepted into a Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Pipeline Training Program, known as MCH Train-A-Bull, at the USF College of Public Health’s Department of Community and Family Health (CFH).

The two-year program provides mentorship, training and guidance for underrepresented undergraduate students from economically, educationally disadvantaged, and diverse backgrounds.

Funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau within the Health Resources and Services Administration, the program aims to increase the diversity of the MCH workforce by supporting scholars who seek graduate training in MCH and health-related fields.

Awardees of the training program receive academic, financial and other assistance.

The program is pleased to welcome the following 2017-2018 MCH Train-A-Bull scholarship recipients:  Eduardo Acosta-Clas, Kristina Bienasz, Vanesa Carreno, Katherine Garcia, Beatriz Godoy-Rivas, Katherine King, Markayla Leggett, Ercilia Moncayo, Yasmin Moya, Heather Nguyen, Laura Perkins, and Sarah Suhood.

2017-2018 MCH Train-A-Bull scholarship recipients and Dr. Cheryl Vamos. (Photo by Charlotte Noble)

The grant, led by principal investigator Dr. Cheryl Vamos, is one of only six such programs across the U.S.

The grant is also supported by co-investigators Drs. Anna Armstrong, Martha Coulter, Ellen Daley from CFH and Dr. Roneé Wilson from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, program coordinator Charlotte Noble, program staff, and other MCH and health faculty and community partners.

“We are so fortunate to have this new undergraduate training award as an additional component in the MCH educational continuum that we offer at USF, which now includes undergraduate students, graduate students, post-doctoral scholars and health professionals in the workforce” said Vamos. “This further solidifies USF COPH as an important MCH training hub for the state of Florida. These efforts will contribute to our goal of cultivating a passionate, culturally competent workforce that has the knowledge and skills to address the persistent MCH health disparities both locally and globally.”

MCH Train-A-Bull Scholars at program orientation. (Photo by Charlotte Noble)

To learn more about applying to become an Undergraduate MCH Train-A-Bull scholar, please contact Charlotte Noble, program coordinator, at cnoble@health.usf.edu.

Story by Charlotte Noble, USF College of Public Health

The post MCH Train-A-Bull program welcomes inaugural cohort of undergrad scholars appeared first on College of Public Health News.

USF College of Public Health doctoral student Nate Stanley is already practicing public health, long before he’s set to graduate.

Stanley, earning a PhD from the Department of Global Health in the fall of 2019, is currently serving as a Research Coordinator I at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center on a grant to examine the relationship between caregivers and young adult cancer patients.

The project, which he joined in January, is set to continue through June under the supervision of Dr. Maija Reblin and is housed in the Moffitt Research Center’s Department of Health Outcomes and Behavior.

USF COPH doctoral student Nate Stanley in front of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center on the USF campus. (Photo by Anna Mayor)

“I had never thought I would be involved in cancer research,” Stanley said. “It just seemed like a neat project. We are collecting research that is largely absent right now from the literature.”

Stanley is conducting in-depth interviews with caregivers and young adults, ages 18 to 29, diagnosed with varying types of cancer.

He said they discuss a range of topics from disclosure with initial diagnosis, treatment and how overall general support is provided to the adolescent from the caregiver.

“The most difficult part is interviewing people who are my age who have cancer. That was something I was cognizant of during the interview, it was very clear I would be talking to people my age or a little younger, but it’s difficult to separate the humanity of the process because you’re getting people’s life stories, so it’s very easy to internalize their experience,” he said. “Trying to find a balance between treating them as people and then not getting so attached to the story that it affects you in a negative way is a difficult part of my research, especially for something that is so emotionally charged.”

Stanley heard of the position through a colleague while completing an internship at the COPH’s Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health.

His career at Moffitt is just taking off and he’s been asked to join another potential research opportunity at Moffitt utilizing focus groups to test a new app tracking needs of cancer survivors. This grant was submitted in early April.

While being a full-time graduate student and employee has kept him extremely busy, Stanley said he enjoys the balancing act.

“Sometimes it’s better to always have things consistently happening so you get into that routine,” he said.

He said that while conducting interviews with the patients has been difficult, it’s strengthening his passion for qualitative research.

“I think life history and life experience is really important, especially when you’re trying to understand complex issues like cancer and how to treat it, and how that experience differs based on family type and dynamic,” he said.

He hopes to continue working with Moffitt in the future and is keeping an open perspective on what could happen after he graduates.

“Everything that has happened in the past couple years, I never thought would be happening, it would be nice to keep working there,” he said.

***

USF College of Public Health graduate student Ashlyn Wayman said she took a chance in applying for her new job at Roosevelt General Hospital in Portales, N.M.

Wayman is currently working toward her MPH in infection control in the Department of Global Health and is set to graduate in the fall of 2017.

After a recent trip to Roosevelt’s emergency room, she found herself reading the website and came across the opportunity to apply as a quality and infection control coordinator at the facility.

USF COPH graduate student Ashlyn Wayman is also currently working toward her MPH. (Photo courtesy of Ashlyn Wayman)

“I was glancing at the hospital’s website and I noticed that they had the position open and I thought ‘Oh my goodness, don’t know if I should apply because I’m not a nurse and I am not yet done with my masters,’ so I didn’t think I would be a candidate, but I went ahead and applied because the worse I would hear is no,” Wayman said.

Just two days after applying, Wayman was asked for an interview and offered the job at the small community-based hospital, which Wayman said has 24 inpatient beds, eight ER beds and a small operating room.

She said earning her undergraduate degree in biology and chemistry, as well as previously taking some premed courses and having a science-oriented background with research experience also boosted her chances for employment.

“I said that if I was going to try it and get my feet wet anywhere, a place this size and with that community-feel was going to be a good place to get started because everyone here is so willing to help you get off the ground and it’s been really good support from my administration, that’s been a huge difference,” she said.

As the quality and infection control coordinator, she assesses all aspects of the facility for adherence to accreditation standards, conducts data gathering and oversees day-to-day surveillance of standard protocol procedures to ensure infection control standards.

“We want to monitor and make sure we don’t have hospital acquired infections,” she said.

Wayman’s typical day includes surveillance across the facility from hand hygiene auditing, to documentation of catheters in patients, down to examining the chemical dilution of solutions used to clean the hospital and ensure proper disinfecting.

She said while it can be tedious, everyday surveillance of procedures ties into her biggest public health passion—protecting patients.

“My biggest passion of it is finding out if there’s something we could have done to improve this patient’s outcome or overall health,” she said. “I’ve always enjoyed that investigative in.”

Balancing a full-time position, as well as 13 graduate credit hours has been difficult and not without sacrifice, however.

“It does take a lot of time management and there are a lot of things that I can’t do because I have to go home and spend four more hours on homework after I get done from work,” she said. “It seems like if I’m not at home learning, I’m constantly at work learning, so I think it’s just been very exhausting. I’m ready to push through the end of the semester; it has been very difficult, but it is doable.”

Upon graduating, Wayman said she hopes to pass the Certification in Infection Prevention and Control (CIC®) and consider expanding her experience at larger facilities.

“Where I’m at now is prime time for someone who is very new to the field,” she said.

However, she said this position has helped to push her arsenal of infection control experience to the next level.

“You have to really be comfortable just being involved everywhere in the hospital. I think that was something I greatly underestimated at the beginning,” she said. “It’s not just some surveillance at your office, you have to be aware of how the lab works, how central sterile works, all the processes of the operating room; you have to willing to learn, and never be scared; you have to be willing to learn how a process works and be comfortable taking initiative to teach yourself and reaching out to resources as much as you can.”

Related Media:

Department of HPM hosts career fair for second year in a row

Story by Anna Mayor, USF College of Public Health

The post Students get to work on the frontlines of public health appeared first on College of Public Health News.

Five graduate students in the USF College of Public Health have joined the Maternal and Child Health Leadership Training Program. The program, funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration, provides leadership training in maternal and child health with a focus on cultural competence, family-centered care and interdisciplinary practice.

The grant, led by Dr. Martha Coulter, principal investigator, was recently renewed for another five-year term with an added post-doctoral component, led by Dr. Karen Liller.

Awardees of the training grant program receive full-time in-state tuition waivers for three semesters, a stipend, travel support to attend conferences and mentoring.

Scholars will also take part in an enhanced curriculum with special training opportunities.

The program is pleased to welcome the following scholarship recipients from the Department of Community and Family Health:

Kimberly Hailey, MPH student

Kimberly Hailey is an MPH student with a concentration in maternal and child health. She currently interns at Friends of Joshua House and serves as the secretary of the Maternal and Child Health Student Organization (MCHSO). Hailey is interested in prenatal, reproductive and sexual health of minority women. She hopes to build her public health skills to encourage the importance of program planning, prevention strategies, and applied research to better the reproductive and sexual health of minority women.

Maria My-Phuong Huynh, MPH student

Maria My-Phuong Huynh is an MPH student with a dual concentration in epidemiology and maternal and child health. She is currently the president of the MCHSO and Eta Sigma Gamma, the Health Education Honorary. She is interested in intimate partner and family violence, and reproductive health issues encompassing sexual health education, family planning, contraceptive use and sexually transmitted infections. Huynh is also interested in using health literacy to inform evidence and theory-based interventions to reduce health disparities among high risk populations.

Grace Liggett, MPH student

Grace Liggett is an MPH student with a concentration in maternal and child health. Liggett is interested in child welfare, disability, adolescence, substance abuse and women’s mental health. She is currently working on developing a cultural-competence training program for community health workers, improving social programs for mothers in Healthy Start and enhancing outreach for a local non-profit organization.

Estefania Rubio, MPH student

Estefania Rubio is an MPH student with a dual concentration in epidemiology and maternal and child health. Rubio is fascinated by risk-appropriate care of pregnant women and high-risk infants. She believes that by addressing health disparities and providing risk-appropriate care, pregnancy outcomes will improve and families will grow stronger and healthier.

Manuela Thomas, MPH student

Manuela Thomas is an MPH student with a concentration in health education. Thomas is currently the treasurer for the Delta Kappa chapter of Eta Sigma Gamma National Health Education Honorary. She is interested in reproductive health and women’s health, related to drug and alcohol use during pregnancy, as well as health inequities and health economics, related to monitoring and evaluation methods for population and health programs.

To learn more about applying to become a MCH scholar, visit the MCH scholar website.

Story by Esther Telusma and Anna Mayor, USF College of Public Health

The post Maternal and Child Health Leadership Training Program announces scholarship recipients for 2016-2017 appeared first on College of Public Health News.

For Dr. Martha Coulter, professor in the Department of Community and Family Health at the USF College of Public Health, maternal and child health has been at the forefront of her public health passion for decades.

Upon earning her master’s degree in public health from the University of California at Berkeley in 1977, she’s devoted her public health career to bettering the lives of families and children.

Martha Coulter, DrPH, MSW. (Photo courtesy of USF Health Communications)

Her alma mater has noticed her impact and the maternal and child health program at Berkeley named her an outstanding alumna honoree for her work in the field.

“When I went to Berkeley in the 70s I was just starting out in my public health maternal and child health career,” Coulter said. “Now I’m getting close to retirement and it just means a great deal to look back and feel like I’ve accomplished some of things I wanted to accomplish in those years, so from that perspective, it’s very meaningful to me.”

Coulter also holds a DrPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in maternal and child health.

She served as the state program director of the Developmental Evaluation Centers Program at the North Carolina Division of Health Services and as a lecturer at the UNC School of Public Health.

When she moved to Florida in 1985, she joined the COPH as an assistant professor. In 1986 she also served as the health officer for Prevention and Early Intervention at the Florida Department of Health in Children’s Medical Services where she was tasked with implementing the newly passed Public Law 99-457 which provides early intervention services to infants and young children.

In 1994 she was named Director of the USF COPH’s Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence, a center focused on integrating knowledge with best practices to strengthen community responses to family violence. The center conducts and translates research into usable information for practitioners to provide education and training, as well as serves as an advocacy center.

Dr. Coulter with the late Janet Reno, former U.S. attorney general, at an event to commemorate the Harrell Center. (Photo courtesy of USF COPH)

“I was working in North Carolina and I thought it would be interesting to be in a college of public health on the west coast and Berkeley had a wonderful reputation for their maternal and child health program,” she said. “They were one of the early program starters and they offered me a maternal and child health training grant.”

Coulter said that UC Berkeley exposed her to some of the early maternal and child health thinkers and policy developers in the country. This exposure solidified her decision to continue her career in maternal and child health.

Coulter said the same training grant program that helped her obtain her MPH is now being offered to current students here at the USF COPH.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of Maternal and Child Health funds 13 Centers of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health nationally, including the one at USF.

These centers, such as the USF Center of Excellence in MCH Education, Practice, and Science, was funded for a five-year term in 2015 with the new addition of a postdoctoral enhancement component, focus on promoting health equity through an interdisciplinary, culturally competent approach.

(From left): Dr. Martha Coulter, principle investigator of the Maternal and Child Health Training Grant, Dr. Karen Liller, co-director of the program’s postdoctoral enhancement component, and Dr. Chukwudi Ejiofor, former project coordinator and COPH alumnus. (Photo by Natalie Preston)

Awardees of the training grant program receive full-time in-state tuition waivers for three semesters, a stipend, travel support to attend conferences and mentoring.

Each year, a small group of graduate students are selected as MCH scholars, taking part in an enhanced curriculum with special training opportunities.

To learn more about applying to become a MCH scholar, visit the MCH Center of Excellence website.

“I could not have been luckier to have had all of the experiences in MCH that I have had, in studies, in practice, in program implementation, and in academia here at USF,” Coulter said.

Story by Anna Mayor, USF College of Public Health

The post Dr. Martha Coulter receives Berkeley alumni award appeared first on College of Public Health News.