When asked about the news that she’d been selected to receive The St. Louis American’s 2022 Lifetime Achiever in Health Care award, Vetta L. Sanders Thompson said she was “definitely honored but overwhelmed.”
“I thought they could have picked someone more deserving,” Sanders Thompson explained, adding, “Hopefully, before I’m done, I’ll feel like I actually earned it.”
Sanders Thompson’s resume does indeed underscore a lifetime of stellar achievement. Recently, she was re-elected to the board of the Missouri Foundation for Health and was also named vice chairperson. Sanders Thompson is the E. Desmond Lee Professor and Associate Dean of Racial and Ethnic Studies at the Brown School at Washington University.
“I share this award with outstanding people who give so much and keep me motivated.”-Sanders Thompson, Vice Chairperson of the Missouri Foundation for Health board of directors.
She is a licensed clinical psychologist and noted researcher in the areas of racial identity, experiences of discrimination and is an associate member of the Siteman Cancer Center where she is working to eliminate cancer disparities.
Sanders Thompson’s research focuses on the health and well-being of diverse communities, particularly the local African American population. Her stated personal goal is to “empower members of the community to improve their health and well-being through education and opportunities for action.”
The coronavirus pandemic has given Sanders Thompson the opportunities to use her skills, passions, and abilities to engage with and inspire those in her profession as well as address racial inequities and health disparities.
“COVID has magnified the issues I’ve been talking about for a very long time,” Sanders Thompson said. “It exposed the inequities in every aspect of our lives that are important to our well-being and ability to live a good life and enjoy our families.”
Some of those inequities are related to poverty and wealth, she said.
“Let’s start with who was able to stay home and who had to go to the workplace and be potentially exposed to the virus,” she added. “The wealthiest were able to work from home, to be socially distant in a comfortable way. Whereas people who work hourly and were paid some of the lowest wages had to come in and were exposed over and over again. Then they had to go back home to their families where they might not be able to be socially distant and protect themselves from the virus. So, you’re talking about people from the most vulnerable areas of our communities. It’s the workers and their families.”
The pandemic also exposed the lack of infrastructure in the medical system, Sanders Thompson stressed. “It took a while to develop the communication strategies to help people understand the virus, its emergence and how to protect themselves and their families. And then it took a while to get the resources into the communities.”
All in all, though, Sanders Thompson, a Birmingham Alabama native, said the health professionals in St. Louis laudably rose to the challenge of serving marginalized communities, be it the African American or immigrant communities in the region.
She also serves as the co-director of the Institute for Public Health Center for Community Health, Partnership and Research which provides information and resources to health care providers, elected officials, and the public in general.
“I was fortunate enough to work with an institution that worked with governments to help them better understand the infection and positivity rates and to understand the social factors that influenced those statistics. I have to say that they [public health officials] did a good job getting resources, testing sites and vaccination campaigns into the community which included North County. It was slow but, as we all know, when you’re doing everything from scratch, it’s going to be slow.”
As someone who’s dedicated to empowering people so they can address and improve their own health and well-being, combatting COVID misinformation proved challenging for Sanders Thompson. She took a deep breath before broaching the topic.
“It’s complicated and it angers me but that’s only going to take you so far,” she said. “I understand how misinformation is easily transmitted. I understand how members of the community can be easily swayed by it…it fits narratives that are out there anyway. The challenge is countering those narratives.
“Fortunately, I work with a lot of different people, and we used outlets where people have a voice and can be heard. We hosted Zoom meetings and webinars and had researchers explain the virus, masking, social distancing and worked with people to help them understand what they can do to protect their physical and mental health. We rewrote complex material that was online and put it in more plain language and shared all that with churches and social and community organizations that people trust.”
Sanders Thompson believes the pandemic has opened the eyes of people in the medical profession regarding long-held biases and racial inequities. Lately, she said, she and her colleagues are receiving numerous requests to share their knowledge and expertise with medical school students.
“I’ve had more requests than ever to do training for medical students, residents, and fellows in this area,” she said. “They’re starting to build this into the curriculum, but it takes time to get enough people trained and out there to make a difference so I’m hoping to sustain that.”
She warns that doctors shouldn’t be singled out for enhanced diversity or sensitivity training. Everyone, including nurses, EMT and emergency room workers and hospital administrators needs to rethink America’s “health structure,” she said.
The health care system is “incentivized by high incomes, high levels of insurance…that’s where you pull in patients who have the money that allows them to operate and engage the types of clinical services and research that people need. We do not incentivize care and services to the poor and underserved. At some point, we must think about changing the structure of what we incentivize.”
Sanders Thompson didn’t speak of her accomplishments in singular vernacular. She constantly used words like “we” or “us,” to emphasize that her achievements are the results of others in her field. The 2022 Lifetime Achiever stressed that she shares her award with colleagues who, like her, work tirelessly to address the needs of the underserved.
“I don’t want to take credit for anything because it’s definitely been a group effort.”
Tickets for the 22nd Annual Salute to Excellence in Health Care Awards Luncheon on Thursday, April 14 at the Frontenac Hilton are $800 per table of 8 for VIP/Corporate seating or $100 each, and $75 each or $600 per table of 8 for general seating. To order tickets, call 314-533-8000 or visit www.stlamerican.com.
Sylvester Brown Jr. is The St. Louis American’s inaugural Deaconess Fellow.
