Dr. Walter Washington honored at Homer G. Phillips lecture
By Anisha F. Coleman
For the St. Louis American
In recognition of his groundbreaking medical expertise and service to the community, Dr. Walter Washington was honored recently at the Homer G. Phillips Public Health Lecture hosted by the Office of Diversity Programs at Washington University School of Medicine at the Eric P. Newman Education Center on the medical school’s campus. It was the 10th anniversary of the lecture series.
Key figures in the medical community paid tribute to Dr. Washington for his tireless efforts advancing medical knowledge and improving access to quality medical care in St. Louis.
Dr. Will H. Ross, associate dean for diversity and director of the Office of Diversity Programs at the medical school, introduced the audience to Dr. Washington’s long list of achievements, including his service as medical director of the Comprehensive Community Health Center from 1969-74 and 1994-2000 and his work to restructure the Old Christian Hospital in North St. Louis.
Most notably, Dr. Washington was and proudly remains a major advocate for the elimination of health care disparities by maintaining comprehensive neighborhood-based health care facilities.
Dr. Kristy F. Woods, professor of internal medicine and director of the Maya Angelou Research Center on Minority Health at Wake Forest School of Medicine, was the keynote speaker. She described the factors that contribute to health disparities – race, gender and socioeconomic status. Dr. Woods shed light on her subject through statistics, graphs and charts that clearly show giant gaps in the quality of health care given to minorities versus their mainstream counterparts.
In her PowerPoint presentation, Dr. Woods illustrated clearly how African Americans are less likely to receive adequate health care. The statistics were staggering. Sharp gasps could be heard throughout the hall as guests viewed the stats on a striking “Timeliness of Care” issue: within 24 hours of being admitted into a hospital, 85 percent of white patients were given an aspirin to help alleviate their pain, while only 80 percent of minorities were given the same basic treatment.
African Americans and other minority groups are also more likely to receive undesirable medical procedures such as amputations and less likely to have equal access to cardiac procedures. The audience found these little-known facts exasperating.
Dr. Woods touched on familiar structural and institutional barriers that contribute to health disparities – African-American women are more likely to die from breast cancer than white women and the relationship between inaccessibility of grocery stores and obesity in urban neighborhoods. Dr. Woods stressed the direct link between the problem of urban obesity and the places where food is purchased.
“People often ask why we eat poor foods and don’t exercise the way we should. I say look at some possible contributing factors,” Dr. Woods said.
“Corner markets that typically specialize in ‘convenient’ and unhealthy foods are found on almost every street corner of urban areas, whereas 80 percent of actual supermarkets that offer a broad range of healthy foods are located in non-minority areas.”
She continued, “Indeed, there are barriers to eating less healthy foods in our communities.”
The fact that race has such a major impact on quality of health and health care is a disheartening one that Dr. Woods, Dr. Washington, Dr. Ross and other health care professionals are committed to changing.
“Historically, it was deemed taboo to recognize that health disparities exist among races,” Dr. Washington said.
“However, since 1994 the medical community has made great strides in speaking openly to the powers that be about this unfortunate injustice. If we continue to address the issue and make continuous efforts to bridge the gap, we are certain that we will eliminate these atrocious discrepancies in health care.”
Dr. Woods echoed Dr. Washington’s sentiment.
“If we are steadfast in making our country aware that discrepancies in health care do exist and explain the discrepancies to the populations the discrepancies are impacting,” Dr. Woods said, “we can undoubtedly conquer this battle and heal our communities.”
