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By Susan Voelkel and Pam Perry
The new National Center of Excellence in Women's Health at the IU School of Medicine (IUSM) is up and running. Funded last year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the center is housed in the Regenstrief Institute for Health Care, with some of the clinical activities being carried out in already existing clinics in Wishard Health System Clinics.
The center, which will serve the community and be a resource for the whole state, will assess women's health needs and current efforts in Indiana to address those needs; develop a coordinated national resource center consisting of programs to provide comprehensive women's health care; encourage women's health education at all levels, beginning at kindergarten; enhance women's ability to advance in the medical profession and encourage women interested in health issues; and encourage and initiate research on women's health issues.
The center's director, Dr. Rose S. Fife, who is also assistant dean for research and professor of medicine, said an integrated, multi-pronged approach to Hoosier women's health problems is needed and the center will help achieve these goals.
"We can succeed only through a collaborative effort," she said, "which will involve all the IU health schools, the Indiana State Department of Health and community organizations that focus on issues affecting women's health," she said.
The center is working with agencies such as the Indiana State Department of Health and the Indianapolis Foundation in identifying women who might serve on the boards of health-related agencies. Work has also begun on issues involving IUSM. "We must work to improve the recruitment and retention of female students and faculty," Fife said, "as well as the advancement of female faculty into leadership positions. Our curriculum is undergoing changes that include teaching culturally appropriate and sensitive patient care to our students."
Women in leadership positions within the school have already established a mentoring program to enlist female senior faculty as mentors for students and, eventually, junior faculty.
Other faculty members have begun developing teaching models that emphasize the importance of acknowledging and incorporating cultural and social values in patient care and student education. In addition, basic and clinical researchers at the school are being encouraged to consider pursuing research relevant to women's health.
In explaining the need for the center, Fife pointed out that Indiana ranks second in the nation in prevalence of smoking among women and first in the nation in obesity. Also, Indiana's 1994 rate of infant mortality was eleventh in the country, and the mortality rate for African-American infants in Indianapolis in 1995 was 15.6 percent -- considerably above state and national levels.
IU was one of six schools funded by HHS in 1997 for establishing women's health centers. The other five are the universities of Michigan, Maryland and California at Los Angeles; Wake Forest College (Bowman Gray); and Boston University. In 1996, six other "vanguard" centers were funded at the universities of Pennsylvania, California at San Francisco and Pittsburgh (Magee Women's); Allegheny College; and Ohio State and Yale universities. The centers will work together on many of these projects. A meeting of representatives from all 12 centers is scheduled this month.
Related Link:
http://www.iupui.edu/~womenhlt/home.html
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