Multiple Opportunities for Volunteerism with Indian Health Service Hospitals
Denise Bartley, NP, BWH’s Tracey Milligan, MD, and Paul Gordon, MD, in Shiprock.
No matter your specialty, there is an opportunity for you to give back through the Brigham and Women’s Outreach Program in New Mexico.
Just ask Tracey Milligan, MD, a BWH neurologist who spent a week at the Indian Health Service (IHS) hospital in Shiprock, New Mexico, where she treated patients and taught the clinical staff about common neurologic diseases and treatment. “Because there is only one neurologist at the hospital, he has a really long waiting list of patients,” Milligan said. “I was able to offload some of these cases for him, and at the same time, do some teaching with the medical staff.”
Since the outreach program’s inception in 2008, 25 BWH physicians have contributed a total of more than 1,000 hours to teaching and patient care at the Indian Health Service hospitals in Gallup and Shiprock. In the past year, anesthesiologists have taught their colleagues at Indian Health Service hospitals about vent management and vent protocols; dermatologists educated clinicians about a variety of skin conditions; and a NICU team conducted training on stabilization of premature infants.
“This program provides a centralized volunteer opportunity for our medical community,” said Program Director Thomas Sequist, MD. “It’s grown a lot in the last six months, and we have worked hard to streamline the application process to make it efficient for physicians.”
In order to meet the needs of the IHS hospitals at Shiprock and Gallup, Sequist and the program team spoke with hospital staff and leadership to understand what they needed clinically and for skills training. As a result, Sequist developed a volunteer model that enables BWH physicians to give back through four channels:
Provide direct patient care on site at Shiprock and Gallup hospitals
Conduct skills training and education for counterparts at Shiprock and Gallup
Maintain a relationship with the hospitals after returning to BWH through teleconsulting and video
Host doctors from Shiprock and Gallup at BWH for training
Physicians who volunteer in New Mexico may stay in an apartment near the hospital in Shiprock, thanks to Phyllis Jen, MD, who directed the program before she passed away in 2009. Dedicated to Jen this past April, the apartment which provides wireless internet, two bedrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen and bathroom. Some physicians have taken their families and arranged for their children to volunteer at an after-school program nearby. “We want to make volunteering as easy as possible from a logistics and coordination standpoint, and having these accommodations certainly helps,” said Sequist.
For Milligan, the apartment—and the plaque that hangs inside in honor of Jen—emphasized the strong BWH connection with the Indian Health Service. In addition to Jen’s legacy of volunteering with IHS, other BWH physicians have formed a strong connection. Aaron Mann, MD, a former resident in BIMA (now called the Phyllis Jen Center for Primary Care), moved to New Mexico and now works full-time with IHS. He serves as a knowledgeable resource for BWH physicians during volunteer missions to New Mexico.
Milligan, who serves as the residency director for the joint BWH and MGH program in Neurology, established an elective for Neurology residents who wish to spend time with IHS. “We have one resident looking into it for the fall,” she said. “This is a great learning experience all around, especially for residents.”
Milligan said she learned a great deal about Navajo culture and how cultural issues affect certain neurological diagnoses. “Epilepsy, for example, is very under-identified, and there’s a big stigma associated with seizures,” she said. “There isn’t even a word for seizure in the Navajo language.”
She added, “They have so many needs that we can help with. I will definitely be returning.”
Learn more: BWHPikeNotes.org/about/BW_IHS