Dr. Garey L.C. Watkins sounded the keynote for the 2018 Salute to Excellence in Health Care in accepting the Lifetime Achiever in Health Care Award: “This award,” he said, “is not about Garey Watkins.”
Like every other award recipient who addressed the capacity crowd of 450 at the Hilton St. Louis Frontenac on Friday, April 27, Watkins passed his recognition onto those who have trained, supported and loved him.
For Watkins, an ophthalmologist who served the U.S. military for more than three decades and retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel, credit was due, foremost, to God, his family and his educators. He praised East St. Louis public schools, Meharry Medical College and, especially, Homer G. Phillips Hospital, which brought him to St. Louis in 1972 and where he completed his residency in 1975.
“To see all these black people teaching and all dressed up,” he said of Homer G. Phillips Hospital, “I was in awe.” That awe was overshadowed only by his unabashed, awesome love for his family, especially his high school sweetheart and wife, Karen Morris Watkins, and God.
The 2018 Stellar Performer in Health Care Award, Angela Clabon, gave praise and credit to a very similar mix of people and powers – indeed, God could be said to be the main awardee at this event – though she emphasized professional mentors rather than educators.
The chief executive officer of Care STL Health, formerly Myrtle Hilliard Davis Comprehensive Health Centers, she credited black women who led community health centers before her and trained her: Betty Jean Kerr, who first hired her at a community health center, and Amanda Murphy, who hired her in her first executive position (as chief financial officer) at a community health center.
Clabon did not work with Myrtle Hilliard Davis, the former namesake of what is now Care STL Health, though she credited Davis’ legacy – despite the controversial recent decision by the center’s board to remove her name from it. Clabon vowed of Davis, “Her legacy will be preserved.”
Interdependence was the entire theme of the remarks made by board chair emeritus Rev. Earl Nance Jr., who accepted the 2018 Health Advocacy Organization of the Year Award on behalf of Heat Up St. Louis, alongside current board president Pamela Walker.
“We’re a consortium, and we all have roles to play,” Nance said, singling out Ameren, Vatterott College and the St. Louis Fire Department as especially critical role players in executing the organization’s mission of keeping low-income homes warm in the winter and cool in the summer, which is critical to health.
The organization’s founder Gentry W. Trotter made the same point in an award video produced by Rebecca Rivas. “We impact people as a collective effort,” Trotter said. “We work together as a tag team to address a health and safety issue.”
The recipient of the Dr. John M. Anderson Excellence in Mental Health Award, Dr. Renee Cunningham-Williams, also showered praise on and passed credit onto God and family, especially her parents, who recently celebrated “55 years of love and marriage.” An associate professor and associate dean of Doctoral Education and director of the Doctoral Program in Social Work at Washington University’s Brown School of Social Work, she also shared credit with colleagues and mentors at the Brown School.
Cunningham-Williams was especially thoughtful in praising and stressing connections to her work with both the namesake of the award she received, Dr. John M. Anderson (1916-1986), a pioneer in the field of mental health, and the award’s sponsor, the St. Louis County Children’s Service Fund. She said the fund’s mission – “To improve the lives of children, youth, and families in St. Louis County by strategically investing in the creation and maintenance of an integrated system of care that delivers effective and quality mental health and substance abuse services” – is perfectly consistent with her research and practice as a social worker.
Eight 2018 Excellence in Health Care Awardees also were recognized: Paulette Luckett-Grant, a school nurse at Berkeley Middle School in the Ferguson-Florissant School District; Dr. Eboni January, an obstetrician/gynecologist at Betty Jean Kerr People’s Health Centers; Dr. Michael Johnson, a critical care and internal medicine physician at SSM Health St. Joseph Hospitals in St. Charles and Lake Saint Louis; Shunta Johnson, a nurse practitioner for BJC HealthCare; Dr. Moyosore Onifade, an internist in primary care and a physician advisor at Christian Hospital and CEO of Practical Health Technology Solutions; Jeanetta Stomer, academic director and cofounder of Aspire Healthcare Solutions; Christina Furr Thurman, a marketing team lead for Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital; and Tawannia Wilson, a registered nurse, is a clinical administrator at Betty Jean Kerr People’s Health Centers.
Presenting sponsors for the 2018 Salute to Excellence in Health Care were Centene Charitable Foundation and Home State Health. Barnes-Jewish Hospital and BJC HealthCare were Gold Sponsors. A.T Still University and Siteman Cancer Center were Silver Sponsors. The Bronze Sponsors were Ameren Missouri, Care STL Health, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis and Webster University.
