Addressing Health Inequities: Week of February 12th, 2021

Dear Salus Students, Faculty, Residents, Staff, Alumni, Board Members and Friends,

Good morning from a rather chilly and snow-covered Elkins Park campus. We continue to have busy weeks with our students and faculty engaged in mask-to-mask, in-person classes, clinical labs (with some practical exams this week) and virtual classwork, in addition to direct care, clinical training here at Elkins Park as well as East Oak Lane and Chestnut Hill.

MORE THAN JUST OPTOMETRY: It wasn’t all academics all the time for Arieneh Tahmasian, OD ’17 and James Komornik, OD ’17 when they were students at the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) at Salus University. Check out our website Sunday for a special Valentine’s Day love story about how Drs. Tahmasian and Komornik met at Salus, fell in love, got married and are now pursuing successful careers as optometrists.

UNCONSCIOUS BIAS AND MICRO-AGGRESSION PRESENTATION: I’m looking forward to a Zoom presentation from 7 to 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 17, called “Unconscious Bias & Microaggression in the Healthcare Setting” by Dr. Juliana Mosley-Williams, PhD, our Special Assistant to the President for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Dr. Mosley-Williams will talk about those topics as they relate to both clinicians and patients in the healthcare environment.

TOP JOBS: We found out recently that four of the professions that Salus trains its students to enter rank among the “100 Best Jobs of 2021” according to U.S. News and World Report — Physician Assistant (PA) at No. 1, Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) at No. 7, Occupational Therapist (OT) at No. 19 and Optometrist at No. 48. Read more about how and why those professions were among the best at salus.edu/TopJobs. 

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: This week’s “Where Are They Now” features Sara Reuss, MS ‘17, CLVT, an Orientation and Mobility specialist at the Nebraska Center for the Education of Children Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired, a school in Nebraska City, Nebraska. Read more about how Sara’s career is progressing at salus.edu/SaraReuss.

FINAL THOUGHTS: We have all been going through many of ups and downs over the past 11 months since the pandemic entered our world. It’s been an unsettling time between frequent discouraging and conflicting news about the pandemic, a vaccine finally being available but inconsistent in distribution, the racial and social unrest that shook the country during the summer, the presidential campaign, insurrection on the Capitol, and now a second impeachment trial for our former president. I think most folks will look back, and with the exception of possibly the Civil War and World Wars I & II, and describe these last 11 months as some of the most turbulent in our history.

These hard times affect us nationally and locally, especially regarding COVID-19 and the Black community. The highest COVID-19 rates of infections, hospitalizations and deaths have been in the Black population of Philadelphia, followed closely by Latinos (Philadelphia Dept of Public Health, 2020). Now as vaccines begin to be distributed across the region, of those vaccinated at Philadelphia health facilities, 43% were white, 12% were Black, 10% were Asian American and 10% reported their race as “other” (Philadelphia Dept of Pubic Health, 2021). That’s pretty disheartening when you know that 44% of Philadelphia’s population is Black, 34% white, 15% Hispanic and 8% Asian American. As I noted last week, some of the challenges with getting people to take the vaccine are related to the high degree of mistrust in the government and vaccine approval process.

As we continue to celebrate Black History Month, it’s incumbent upon us to familiarize ourselves with these data, as difficult as that might be, and determine how we can all work together to help improve these health inequities that stem from hundreds of years of racial discrimination and injustices, systemic poverty, as well as a societal blind spot that must be unmasked. As healthcare professionals, while we cannot directly address many of the contributing systemic social determinants of health, we certainly can work to address those health inequities that have resulted in limited access to quality healthcare that has resulted in increased morbidities and mortalities over the years.

At Salus we have a responsibility to the communities we serve. Helping everyone to receive high quality and compassionate care within our clinical facilities as well as in others is a core tenet of our Credo. I ask that we all spend some time this weekend thinking about our Salus community can help to positively impact those systemic issues others have lived with for generations. We have so much to give through our educational and clinical outreach.

Stay safe, continue to social distance, wear your face mask (two are better than one) and wash your hands frequently. We are SALUS STRONG and this is our time to help make other lives better!

Mike