November 2020
Welcome to “The Scope,” the newsletter of the ECU Division of Health Sciences.
Welcome to the November issue of The Scope, the newsletter of the ECU Division of Health Sciences.
From time to time, I’ll ask another leader, provider, educator or other notable member of the DHS community to share a message with you as we celebrate the month’s accomplishments and highlights. This month, we hear from Dr. Greg Chadwick, dean of the School of Dental Medicine.
Mark Stacy, MD
Dean, Brody School of Medicine
Vice Chancellor, Division of Health Sciences
Dear Colleagues,
An appealing quality of the ECU Division of Health Sciences is its vision to promote interprofessional collaboration as a means to optimize patient- and community-centered care. As a division, we measure our successes by how well our graduates are prepared to meet and overcome the challenges that threaten the health and wellness of our region and state.
Each of the DHS colleges and schools—and the people who make them what they are—has risen to the occasion during the greater part of this year. Our schools have viewed the challenges of 2020, not as a hindrance, but as a catalyst for reaffirming their purpose. Never before has the need for our graduates, their expertise and their capacity for collaboration been so great.
Dr. Greg Chadwick Dean, ECU School of Dental Medicine
And never before has the spirit and energy of the ECU School of Dental Medicine been so palpable.
Since our operations were first affected by COVID-19 eight months ago, the SoDM community has pulled together in ways we might not have previously thought possible. That is a testimony to the commitment, creativity and determination of all members of our team who work and learn from one corner of our state to the other.
In the short history of our young dental school, our on-campus clinics and eight statewide community service learning centers have provided care for more than 75,000 unique patients from all 100 North Carolina counties. We now have more than 300 alumni of our DMD program, and many of them are providing care in some of our most rural and under-resourced communities. This fall, we welcomed our 10th class, one of the most diverse ever. Our students continue to pass the torch of leadership, becoming officers in local, state and national student dental organizations.
It has also been heartening to see our dental faculty turn their passion and expertise into action. Dr. Wanda Wright was recently named the school’s first assistant dean for diversity, equity and inclusion. She serves as a member of the school’s senior leadership team and contributes to the recruitment, retention and success of underrepresented faculty, staff, students and residents.
The dental school earned a $3.2 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to continue our Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students program, funding scholarships for economically disadvantaged students over the next five years. A $3.1 million HRSA grant is set to enhance resident training in the care of patients with special needs. The award, one of the largest in the dental school’s history, will focus on improving dental care for pediatric and elderly patients, patients with mobility issues and other complex health problems and those with mental, emotional and behavioral challenges.
To date, more than 425 patients have been served through the SoDM’s Patient Care Funds, which fully or partly cover the cost of dental procedures for patients who meet designated financial criteria. The program is supported by gifts and donations and is a “quadruple win”—it provides care for patients in need, offers students vital experiences, contributes to the school’s sustainability and is a tangible way for donors to make a true difference.
The School of Dental Medicine also continues to evolve and respond on every front in our profession. We rely increasingly on technology in the clinic, the labs and the classroom, from teledentistry to teleconferencing. Technology leverages the abilities of our practitioners, yet we also seek to preserve the human element of dental care. That patient-doctor bond is such an integral part of our approach to patient-centered care.
We’ve accomplished a lot, and there is still much to do. As a school and as a part of the Division of Health Sciences, we see increased collaborative opportunities in a profession that looks vastly different than it did only months ago.
From the time they first became our homes, our CSLC communities across the state have taught us about resilience. Our commitment remains a resounding part of our identity as a school today. We will continue to keep our promise to North Carolinians to meet them where and as they are, opening doors to health care and education.
Best wishes,
Greg Chadwick, DDS, MS
Dean
ECU School of Dental Medicine
Excellence
Dr. Anne Dickerson, professor of occupational therapy in the College of Allied Health Sciences, received the 2020 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Public Service from North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper in a virtual ceremony Oct. 27. Dickerson was one of 13 people recognized for service and contributions that “go beyond the call of duty and make a positive difference in the lives of their fellow North Carolinians.”
Dr. Anne Dickerson has received the 2020 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Public Service. (Photo by Rhett Butler.)
While Dickerson’s primary research over the past 25 years has been with older drivers, five years ago she established a summer boot camp for young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for which she’s been recognized with the highest honor given to state employees.
“It really is a great honor,” said Dickerson. “I couldn’t do it without the (ECU) students. Each student group has built on the last one with their enthusiasm and empathy and support for these kids. It’s incredible. As much as it’s an award for me, it’s for these students and these kids. I want to share this award with all these individuals.”
Occupational therapy helps ensure that people can do the things they need to do every day, “and one of those is driving,” Dickerson said. “Everybody deserves a chance.”
As COVID-19 was impacting eastern North Carolina, Dr. Todd Jackson used his expertise to drive innovation. During its annual convention, the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists (NCAP) awarded the 2020 Don Blanton Award to Jackson for being “the pharmacist who contributed the most to the advancement of pharmacy in North Carolina during the past year.”
In addition to his regular duties overseeing pharmacy, lab and imaging services as the director of Ancillary Services for ECU Physicians and the Brody School of Medicine, Jackson volunteered his free time during the pandemic to help manufacture hand sanitizer for the university and surrounding communities. After that, he helped organize drive-thru flu vaccine clinics that provided a safer flu shot alternative for ECU students, employees and their families.
“It is an honor and humbling to receive such a distinguished award as I work with many other pharmacists on the many efforts to keep pharmacy moving forward as a health care profession,” Jackson said. “I enjoy learning from others while working toward common goals aimed at improving patient access to affordable timely care through traditional and non-traditional approaches.”
Video of Governors Award for Excellence for Public Service 2020: Anne Dickerson. Visit this video on YouTube for the closed-captioned version.
Outreach
Laupus Library has been awarded a $75,000 grant through the Institute of Museum and Library Services to provide laptops and health education instruction to the school-aged children of migrant farmworker families in eastern North Carolina.
The library purchased 100 laptops to be distributed in November 2020 to middle- and high-school children in Wayne and Pitt counties. Beth Ketterman, Laupus Library director, said laptops were chosen as the device to best meet the needs of these students.
“The shift to remote instruction upended education in the greatest of ways,” said Ketterman. “Providing a device that is not just loaned but given to a student who has the added challenge of potentially moving during the pandemic, means they can have a consistency in access to their learning materials.”
As part of its ECU Smiles for Veterans initiative, the School of Dental Medicine provided care this month for western North Carolina veterans at its community service learning center in Sylva. The school has treated more than 100 veterans through the program that began in 2018. On Veterans Day, some of the school’s faculty and staff veterans participated in a virtual panel discussion to share leadership lessons they learned through their service that translate to classroom and clinic.
ECU hosted guest speaker Dr. Damon Tweedy during the virtual 16th annual Jean Mills Health Symposium last month. Tweedy’s virtual presentation, “Reflections on Race and Medicine in the Year of COVID-19 and Nationwide Protest,” attracted audiences from across ECU disciplines and the community.
Dr. Robin Tutor Marcom, director of the North Carolina Agromedicine Institute hands protective masks and disinfectant wipes to Tracy Taylor, owner of Stone Mountain Farms in Vilas, N.C. (Photos by Marie Freeman, Appalachian State University)
Tweedy is the author of the bestseller, “Black Man in a White Coat.”
The symposium was sponsored by the Brody School of Medicine Departments of Public Health and Psychiatry & Behavioral Medicine as well as the ECU Center for Health Disparities and the West Greenville Health Council. The annual event’s purpose is to bring attention to critical health care issues facing minority populations and to seek solutions. The ECU College of Allied Health Sciences is also an annual supporter of the event that honors Mills’ legacy.
During the event, Dr. Cedric Bright, associate dean for admissions and interim associate dean for diversity and inclusion for the Brody School of Medicine, welcomed Tweedy and outlined Brody’s efforts to recruit a diverse student body—one that is not only culturally diverse but inclined to serve. “We look for people who have shown the proclivity to care,” Bright said.
While health care systems around the world were frantically searching for personal protective equipment (PPE) for front-line hospital workers during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the North Carolina Agromedicine Institute was doing the same for another group of essential workers—farmers.
The North Carolina Agromedicine Institute received $52,000 in public/private funding, including a $50,000 grant from Phillip Morris, but was able to use its valuable statewide and national connections to bring in additional donations of supplies. By the beginning of September, the institute had distributed more than $150,000 worth of materials, including masks, non-touch thermometers, gloves and sanitizing wipes.
During the peak harvest months, there are more than 70,000 seasonal workers on North Carolina farms. They traditionally work, live and travel in close proximity to each other, helping the state’s farms provide consumers with everything from produce and livestock to Christmas trees. While the crops may differ from place to place, the state’s farms share the common concern of needing to keep their workers safe.
“Our growers are very stressed at the idea of work stoppage and trying to figure out what resources are available to protect their workers. We’ve certainly had farms that have had outbreaks and had to cease operations. And when you have a farm that has a work stoppage, that is serious,” said ECU’s Dr. Robin Tutor Marcom, director of the North Carolina Agromedicine Institute.
An ECU Brody School of Medicine-led initiative that provides telehealth screenings to eastern North Carolina children has enlisted a creative way to bring health care to the students during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since September, ECU’s Healthier Lives at School and Beyond School-Based Telemedicine Program has used an ECU Transit bus to visit schools in Duplin County to connect students and staff with quality behavioral health, nutrition, dental and acute medical care services. The mobile unit has been used to provide screenings for close to 100 students so far, with additional visits planned.
The program, created in 2016 through a $1.2 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), initially screened students using telemedicine—secure video connections between the schools and health care providers. Because many schools shifted to virtual learning, the Healthier Lives program made a transition as well by using the mobile unit.
“This is in direct response to COVID. We were having a lot of difficulty getting in contact and in reach with the children, so the mobile unit is in response to that difficulty,” said Jill Jennings, ECU’s project coordinator for the program. “We’re going a hybrid route, a bus going in person to them, making it easier for us to then communicate with the parents in person and then be able to hopefully generate nutrition referrals, behavior health referrals and oral health referrals by providing these physicals.”
Research
An East Carolina University infectious disease specialist at Vidant Medical Center was among the first to trial a new COVID-19 antibody treatment that was granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday.
Dr. Paul Cook, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at ECU’s Brody School of Medicine, began enrolling patients in August in the clinical trial investigating the monoclonal antibody treatment now named bamlanivimab developed by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.
Early studies of the treatment showed a statistically significant reduction in the need for patient hospitalization as compared with a placebo.
“What it means is that we’re at the forefront — it doesn’t mean that we’re the only place in town,” Cook said. “I’ve gotten emails about it asking, ‘How are we going to do this?’ and, ‘Where is it going to be done?’ We already know how to do it because we have already been doing it. We’ll probably do it at our infusion center, which we already have in place.”
Dr. Srinivas Sriramula, a researcher in the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University has received a five-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how communication between the central nervous system and immune system regulate blood pressure. The research has the potential to contribute to novel treatments for hypertension.
Sriramula will explore how specific kinins—peptides formed in the body in response to injury or inflammation—and their receptors induce inflammation and regulate blood pressure. Dr. Sriramula’s work will focus on kinin B1 receptors.
Dr. Jessica Ellis, assistant professor in the Department of Physiology and researcher at the East Carolina Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute, works in a lab at the Brody School of Medicine. (Photo taken prior to COVID-19.)
“Our recent studies suggest that using a drug to inhibit the activation of kinin B1 receptor prevents the increase in blood pressure,” he said. “In this project, we aim to develop a novel therapeutic approach based on kinin B1 receptor blockade to treat neurogenic hypertension. The results will expand our knowledge regarding hypertension and provide new insights for the kinin B1 receptor blockade as clinical treatment for hypertension.”
A research team at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine has published a study that may help exonerate a popular scapegoat in the field of metabolic disease.
The study, produced by a team led by Dr. Andrea Pereyra, post-doctoral scholar, and Dr. Jessica Ellis, assistant professor in the Department of Physiology and researcher at the East Carolina Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute, was recently published in the Cell Reports journal.
Ellis’ lab received a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to support its research project on lipid metabolism in skeletal muscle, and this is the first of what the team hopes will be many related publications.
Their work centers on acylcarnitines, a type of metabolite that has been suspected of playing a role in the harmful effects of obesity and diabetes. Acylcarnitines accumulate in tissues and blood — especially skeletal muscle — during acute metabolic stress and chronic metabolic disease.
“There’s quite a history of these metabolites … being accused of eliciting some of the potentially negative pathology that is associated with diabetes and obesity,” Ellis said. “But the question has remained: What are they doing, if anything, to the biology of the muscle?”
DHS Spotlight
In the spirit of excellence in education and a collaborative campus, we will be highlighting a variety of students, staff and faculty who represent the colleges and schools in the Division of Health Sciences.
This month, we meet Marianne Congema, a senior in the College of Nursing.
East Carolina University senior Marianne Congema has wanted to be a nurse since fifth grade, when her mother had a heart attack followed by an extensive hospital stay.
“I was inspired by the compassion and brilliance that the nurses displayed in the care they provided for her,” Congema said. “Since then, my educational journey has reflected this passion.”
Marianne Congema works in the simulation lab at the College of Nursing. (Photo by Rhett Butler.)
At E.A. Laney High School in Wilmington, Congema pursued an allied health science track and earned her certified nursing assistant (CNA) license. She has worked as a CNA in long-term care and hospital settings through college, “building my patient experience and my love of nursing.”
Congema chose ECU “because of the many opportunities the university had to offer to help me grow personally, scholastically and professionally,” she said. An EC Scholar in the Honors College, she also received early assurance admission to ECU’s College of Nursing — where she plans to enter the Doctor of Nursing Philosophy program after graduation in May.
The coronavirus pandemic has helped Congema grow personally and professionally as a health care provider, she said.
“Being in the hospital setting, I see firsthand how the pandemic has affected hundreds of lives, and it has changed the way I view and care for patients and their loved ones,” she said. “The pandemic has challenged me to shift the way I learn, utilizing technology like never before.”
Before the COVID-19 crisis, Congema traveled with Dr. Kim Larson and fellow Pirate student nurses to Guatemala, where they operated a free health clinic, volunteered at a hospital, and taught children about handwashing, hygiene and nutrition.
In a research project with Dr. Katherine Ford, Congema conducted surveys with parents and Latino students at the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Coastal Plain to identify roadblocks in enrolling and succeeding in higher education. Results were used to design interventions in hopes of making college more accessible to the Latino population.
Following graduation, Congema plans to work part time as a registered nurse while earning a doctoral degree in nursing philosophy with a focus on leadership.
“I hope to be working in the labor and delivery unit as my time in clinical has sparked a passion in women’s and children’s health,” she said.
Philanthropy
Giving Thanks for Sustaining Donors
Nearly 200 donors across the Division of Health Sciences give using payroll deduction or set up recurring online gifts using their credit or debit card. These sustaining donors provide over $84,000 in annual support for student scholarships and emergency funds, school and department priority funds, faculty development, patient care and research.
Sandra Smith. (Contributed photo.)
These donors make small gifts that add up over time to have a significant impact on our mission by providing ongoing resources to help us sail through troubled waters and stormy seas.
Sandra Smith (BSN ‘80) splits her monthly gift between two College of Nursing initiatives. She is helping students currently experiencing financial hardships as a sustaining donor of the Nursing Emergency Fund (a non-endowed fund). She is also supporting nursing students who want to work in developing countries in perpetuity by contributing to the Carol Irons Undergraduate Global Initiative Fund (an endowed fund).
Smith is proud of the start that the College of Nursing provided her and makes her monthly gift in memory of her mother, Hazel C. Williams, who instilled in Smith that it isn’t enough to succeed, you have to reach back and bring someone else forward.
Becoming a sustaining donor is easy.
ECU employees can set up a gift using payroll deduction. Sign-in to Pirate Port, go to Banner Self Service and then click on Employee. Under Employee select Benefits and Deductions followed by Voluntary Miscellaneous Benefits and then Add a New Benefit or Deduction.
All donors—employees, alumni and friends—can set up a recurring gift online using your credit or debit card simply select the fund you want to support from one of the online giving pages below and click the purple GIVE box. You can then choose to make Scheduled Payments or a Recurring Gift of a specified amount.
College of Allied Health Sciences
If you have questions or if the fund you want to support is not listed as a payroll deduction or online giving option, please email Terah Archie at archiet15@ecu.edu for assistance.
The Medical & Health Science Foundation is grateful to all the donors who “support the things we treasure” by providing our colleges and schools with the resources they need to prepare leaders in the medical, dental, nursing and allied health fields to improve lives and create access to care across our state. Thank you for your support!
During this season of kindness and generosity, we invite others to becoming sustaining donors and make perpetual gifts to funds that make a difference in the work we do across the division.