The first nine graduates of the Hale County Health Scholars program were honored at a luncheon ceremony Thursday, Nov. 21, at Moundville Archaeological Park with Gov. Robert Bentley as the keynote speaker. 

The senior luncheon acknowledged students who were selected from across Hale County in 2011 based on their academic record, volunteer activities, leadership skills and essays about their future plans. Once a month, the students participated in activities related to health careers, including visits to local health care facilities, agro-medicine field trips to farms, seminars with health professionals and skills workshops.

The Hale County Health Scholars Program is one of three West Alabama Health Scholars programs (the others are in Fayette and Pickens County) operated by the College of Community Health Sciences. The programs—initiated by the West Alabama Health Development Partnership—are designed to introduce high school students to health care professions and the needs in their communities. The programs are conducted by local leaders in health care and education sectors working with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, the State of Alabama, the Appalachian Regional Commission and The University of Alabama.

Bentley offered words of encouragement to the students, saying that while they are at the very beginnings of their careers in health, they have the opportunity to succeed and give back to their communities.   

“[The Rural Medical Scholars Program] is a program that really shows results,” he said. “But it takes time—it’s not something that obviously occurs in a year or two or three. It takes a long time to prepare for a medical career. But the program has been in place for several years, and as we look at the maps across Alabama, and we see the physicians that have been produced, it makes me very proud of this program and proud to have been part of it.”

Bentley also said that the Appalachian Regional Commission, upon his recommendation, would offer funding for another year to the College to continue the Hale County Health Scholars program.

The Rural Medical Scholars Program, one of the programs in the College’s Rural Health Leaders Pipeline, is a five-year track of medical studies leading to a medical degree, including a year prior into medical school and four years of medical school. College seniors or graduate students from rural areas are eligible to participate.

Also present at the luncheon were Jimmy Lester, state program manager for the Appalachian Regional Commission; Jim Byard, director for the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs; Tom Lackey, administrator for Hale County Hospital; Tyrone Smith, coordinator for the Hale County Cooperative Extension Service; and Jenny Hughey, teacher for the Hale County School System. Each also addressed the students offering words of praise and encouragement.

The graduates also gave speeches sharing their thoughts on the program and what they have received from it.

Shaquila Washington, a senior at Sunshine High School, said that being a Hale County Health Scholar has helped her decide to pursue a career in health care after she graduates high school, and she attributes a large part of that decision to the shadowing opportunities she took advantage of.

“I’d say to any of the scholars coming after us that if you have a chance to shadow, go for it. It opens up a different view of something you might want to do. Besides hearing someone talk about what they do, you can be there to see and know if you want to do it, too.”

She also offered thanks to those who lead the program.

“You opened up so many doors for us,” she said. “You showed us things that we probably wouldn’t have seen if we were just at school on a day-to-day basis, not involved with anything. So thank you for giving us this opportunity.”

The West Alabama Health Scholars programs are a community-based component of The University of Alabama Rural Health Leaders Pipeline, part of the College of Community Health Sciences. The pipeline is a series of programs based at the University that help rural Alabama students prepare for careers in medicine and other health fields and enter practice in rural areas of the state. These programs were created to address the chronic shortage of health professionals in rural and underserved areas of Alabama.

 

Hale County Health Scholars graduates:

Moesha Gaitor, Greensboro High School

Zoshsha Hamilton, Greensboro High School

Bethany Lewis, Hale County High School

Gabrielle Owens, Sunshine High School

Katelyn Price, Hale County High School

Jackson Seale, Hale County High School

Kia Skipper, Greensboro High School

Shaquila Washington, Sunshine High School

Caleb Wyatt, Hale County High School

 

Greg Snodgrass, director of The University of Alabama Student Health Center’s Collegiate Recovery Community (CRC), was recognized by Texas Tech University with the New Achiever Award. 

The award was presented at the 31st Annual Distinguished Awards celebration at Texas Tech’s College of Human Sciences last month.

The award is given to those who are identified as an emerging leader through professional achievements, contributions to his or her field and characteristics that indicate the likelihood of future leadership and success.

Margaret Garner, associate dean for Health Education and Outreach, interim executive director of the UA Student Health Center, and associate professor in Family Medicine at the College of Community Health Sciences said of Snodgrass, “In his short tenure here, he has developed the CRC into a strong program, one that is frequently called by other institutions wanting to develop their own program. From parent weekend to recovery conferences that bring in professionals and students from other areas to healthy contacts locally and beyond, Greg has positioned the CRC for success.”

Snodgrass was a recent speaker at the 30th Annual Golf Coast Conference on Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and organized a conference with the Alabama Students About Service (ASAS) and the University of Alabama at Birmingham to educate students about addiction and recovery.

ASAS is a student organization of the CRC.

The UA Collegiate Recovery Community is modeled after that of Texas Tech. It is a program for students who have made a commitment to lead sober, healthy lives and has created a structured, healthy community where recovering students can thrive academically and socially while actively pursuing their recovery.

The CRC is a program of the UA Student Health Center which is operated by the College of Community Health Sciences.

 

 

 

 

 

Tina Conn, MT, will be joining the College of Community Health Sciences as director of Laboratory and Radiology Services in the College’s Lab and X-Ray Department. Conn was chosen after an extensive selection process that ended in late October. She will begin on December 2.

Conn is a certified medical technologist through the American Society for Clinical Pathology, the world’s largest professional membership organization for pathologists and laboratory professionals.

Currently, Conn serves as the administrative supervisor of the Core Lab in Northport Medical Center, which is part of the DCH Health System. She has more than 30 years of experience in various lab settings.

“She comes with a great deal of energy and enthusiasm,” says David Nichols, chief operating office for the College. “Tina was the unanimous choice of the College’s multi-disciplinary search committee.”

The Laboratory and Radiology Services director position became available in September after the retirement of Sherry Wedgeworth, who served as director of the College’s Lab and X-Ray Department for 25 years.

The department is a part of University Medical Center, a multi-specialty clinic that is operated by the College and serves The University of Alabama and the West Alabama community.

A crowd of about 200 students from Kindergarten to twelfth grade made its way into a school gym in rural Newbern, Ala. The students wandered with their friends to displays at about 15 or so tables set up along the gym walls. They planted spinach seeds in decomposable pots of soil at one table, had jump rope contests at another and marveled at the amount of sugar in a single Pop Tart at another. 

In between the activities, they had their glucose levels tested, their body mass indexes measured and their blood pressure checked.

This was all part of the first health fair hosted on Sept. 27 by the Sunshine School in Newbern, which is located in the Black Belt region of Alabama.  The event was open to students, parents and the surrounding community as part of a nearly $900,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop and support collaborative research between academic researchers and residents of Alabama communities disproportionately impacted by poor health.

The grant project, “UNITED: Using New Interventions Together to Eliminate Disparities,” or Project UNITED, is a partnership of The University of Alabama’s College of Community Health Sciences and the College of Communication and Information Sciences and the Black Belt Community Foundation. The grant was funded by the Community Based Participatory Research Initiative of the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities, an institute of the National Institutes of Health.

The three-year planning grant is focused on reducing obesity in rural Alabama through community-based participatory research. The Sunshine School was one of the sites chosen by the Project’s community advisory board for a pilot study, said John C. Higginbotham, PhD, associate dean for Research and Health Policy for the College of Community Health Sciences,  director of the College’s Institute of Rural Health Research and one of the grant’s principal investigators.

The other principal investigators are  Kim Bissell, PhD, associate dean for research for the College of Communication and Information Sciences and director of the Institute for Communication and Information Research, and Felecia Jones, MBA, executive director of the Black Belt Community Foundation.

As part of the partnership, the school came up with a list of ways Project UNITED could help, including the organization of a health fair, which Principal Charla Jordan said was a success in educating both students and the community about health.

“As a kid, you hear about issues like high blood pressure and associate that with adults,” she said. “But here they are learning and realizing that these things are possible with young kids as well.”

College faculty, physicians from the area, medical students at the College of Community Health Sciences and students and faculty from the University’s Capstone College of Nursing were in attendance to help with the screenings. They said that from their observations, the health fair served its purpose.

Michele Montgomery, PhD, RN, assistant professor at  the Capstone College of Nursing, said she screened children who had elevated blood pressure and needed to be referred to a physician. For this reason alone, Montgomery said the health fair was a benefit to the children.

“You don’t know if they are getting a regular health checkup,” she said. “Like these kids (with elevated blood pressure)—they may not have noticed otherwise if not getting a physical. Health behaviors they develop now—like healthy eating and exercise—will help them later in life.”

Eunice Briggins, a mother of three who currently attend the school and two who have already graduated, said she came for her health screening to support the school, and she’s glad she did.

“I now know I need to cut down on my salt intake with my girls and me to lower my blood pressure,” she said, as she turned to her daughter beside her. “Did you know you’re only supposed to eat one Pop Tart out of the package?” she asked with a laugh.

Briggins said she’s glad the health fair was held because she says it’s a way to keep students and families healthy.

“That’s especially if they aren’t going out to get checked,” she said. “Some people don’t have transportation.” 

Project UNITED also plans to work with Druid City Garden Project, a Tuscaloosa-based organization that uses school gardens and educational programs to help communities establish healthy eating habits and reduce obesity, to plant a garden at the Sunshine School. The organization was present at the health fair with its spinach seed-planting activity.

Project UNITED will also organize workshops to enhance research knowledge and skills of community members and university faculty as it relates to community-based participatory research. 

Higginbotham said that community-based participatory research component was a key part of the health fair as well as the screenings and education, so data were collected from students with parental consent and child assent and anyone from the community who consented.

“One of the things [the Sunshine School] wanted to do was not only see where their kids stood with regard to a lot of health indicators, but they wanted to expand that beyond their students to parents and the community as a whole,” Higginbotham said. “The school wanted to have a role in improving the health of their whole community.”