As a low-income immigrant from Ethiopia, Bedaso is now a third-year medical student and business school candidate at the School of Medicine and the School of Management, having previously completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Colorado-Denver. 

While his parents supported him financially and emotionally, he said that they couldn’t help him navigate the pre-medical path or school-related work more broadly. He received additional support from his older brother and other mentors through various nonprofits but said that he still felt he couldn’t access as many resources as others.  

For Bedaso, though immigrants and FGLI students come from different cultural and geographic backgrounds, they often face similar realities. He noted that his experience was similar to other first-generation immigrant students. 

“[Due to] the language barrier and because of the fact that our parents didn’t go to school here, there’s not much they can do to help in terms of applying for certain things or even keeping things on your radar because they never really were a part of that process,” Bedaso said.

Bedaso noted that he felt an especially large culture shock after moving to New Haven and attending Yale. Fortunately, he said he quickly found community with people who shared his experiences through Yale First Generation/Low Income or YFLI, a group of medical students who meet for dinner once every two weeks to share advice and support each other. To supplement this existing affinity group, Yale Medical School recently launched the First-Generation Low-Income Longitudinal Mentorship Program or the “FGLI LMP.”

Established in September 2023 by Jaime Cavallo, an assistant professor of urology who was an FGLI medical student, FGLI LMP seeks to help medical students develop meaningful relationships with practicing physicians and offer them a variety of learning and career progression opportunities through networking and tailored resources. These mentorships try to provide current medical students, residents and fellows with insights into the ins and outs of a doctor’s life through faculty pairing and mentorship. 

According to a 2021 NIH study, fewer than 25 percent of medical student applicants are FGLI and a majority of medical trainees come from high-income households. Yale’s FGLI LMP program is on a mission to challenge this reality and is not alone. Other medical schools have developed similar programs to ensure that FGLI students are better supported while at school. 

“It feels very scary when you’re the only one in different spaces, whether it’s in the hospital or in the classroom, but then you have that pocket of community to help you interact with the medical school in ways that you couldn’t otherwise,” Bedaso said. “You’ll find these different, different groups of people to help you and so I couldn’t have made it here as it had not been for these people helping me.” 

Natasha Tillet is a resident doctor at Yale New Haven Hospital who said she is passionate about mentorship increasing underrepresented minority and low-income students’ access to medicine and surgical subspecialties. For Tillet, who was the first in her family to attend college and medical school, mentorship was crucial in helping her develop an interest in medicine. 

“The biggest impact of mentorship for me is having someone who has been there, done that, and can help me navigate through challenges. As a Black woman in medicine, specifically a surgical field where there aren’t many of us, it can be isolating and nerve-wracking — feeling like you don’t belong and questioning whether or not you deserve to be where you are,” Tillet wrote in an email to the News. “That feeling is also compounded by coming from a low-income background. It can just generally feel othering. Having mentors who fully understand my experience has been life changing, and I don’t think I would have chosen the field I’m in now without their support.”

In an interview with the News, Nancy Park MED ’25, a fourth-year medical school student, highlighted the importance of resilience and resourcefulness in her journey as a FGLI student. Park’s path to medical school was far from typical. Her parents, who did not attend college, immigrated from South Korea to the United States in search of blue-collar jobs, eventually starting their own restaurant in Augusta, Georgia, where Park was born. While in college, Park worked as a waitress in their restaurant to cover some of her college expenses, such as housing. 

Park said that she especially noticed the difference between FGLI students and non-FGLI students navigating medical and pre-medical school tasks. She said she felt that she was at a disadvantage. 

“I noticed that their parents were telling them exactly what they needed to do during college to move on to the next stuff,” Park said. “I didn’t really have any internal support from my family. The familial and emotional support was there, but I think the logical and practical support wasn’t quite there.”

Park said the Yale environment has been both welcoming and intimidating. She initially felt daunted by her more affluent classmates who were more aware of the expectations of medical school or had parents who attended Ivy League institutions. 

But Park said that the University’s comprehensive financial aid package has allowed her to focus on her studies without fear of financial strain. She also noted that the FGLI student group and the University’s feedback surveys on food security, for example, have reassured her of its commitment to supporting FGLI students.

“In terms of feeling supported as well, I think just because of my peers coming from a lot of different backgrounds, everyone that I’ve met in my class has been really awesome,” Park said to the News. 

Park emphasized the importance of mentorship pipelines and ensuring that students eventually make it through medical school. Park said that she benefited from having experienced research mentors and peer mentors within the medical community to guide her through her medical journey and offer her insights and support. 

Park noted that she tries to extend this generosity to others. She currently reviews personal statements for students at her alma mater and advocates for more diverse representation in future medical school classes. 

“I feel like finding a mentor and a specialty or, in general, a field that you’re interested in is really important,” Park said. “I’ve benefited so much from having, for example, research mentors that are decades out in my field,” Park said. 

Readers can learn more about the First-Generation Low-Income Longitudinal Mentorship Program online.

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Based out of the Yale School of Public Health, the Housing and Health Equity Lab has explored the effects of housing disparities and homelessness on people’s health since its founding in 2020. Her team aims to get a deeper understanding of how access to housing affects health outcomes and develops solutions to address the health issues arising from inadequate housing access.

Since then, the lab has used a combination of data analysis and interviews with community members to develop evidence-based solutions that increase housing access and equity. Keene, an associate professor for public health, noted that her lab also hopes to improve collaboration between researchers while creating a training ground for students interested in the social determinants of health.

“Our mission is to conduct research that is actionable towards the goal of advancing housing and health justice,” Keene wrote in an email to the News. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic moved much of the lab’s meetings and research online, Keene has been able to expand her research team beyond Yale. Now, her trainees include students at Columbia University, Ohio State University, Emory University and other institutions. 

These collaborations, she said, have strengthened the lab’s ability to investigate a wide range of issues related to housing and health. Some of her team’s ongoing projects explore the effects of evictions on mental and physical health and how the wait time for rental subsidies affects diabetes management.

“If you have spent most of your money on rent, you probably do not have enough left to buy enough food, fill prescriptions or pay utilities,” wrote Penelope Schlesinger, the lab’s manager and program administrator, in an email to the News. “There is a critical need for more affordable housing, [so] it’s critical to continue to explore the ways housing shapes health.”

Systemic health inequities

Whitney Denary, a lab member and doctorate candidate in social and behavioral sciences, noted that one of the lab’s research goals is to contextualize how racially discriminatory housing policies, such as redlining, have produced disparities in housing access — and lead to harmful health consequences.

As a result of these systemic practices, she explained, communities of color have a lower likelihood of home ownership and experience housing insecurity at a higher rate.

“In the 1930s, the Homeowner’s Association provided land in areas that aren’t good to people of color and provided them with higher mortgage rates,” Denary told the News. “People who weren’t able to buy housing at that time may go down the line of renting, which reduces generational wealth and ability to use money.” 

Additionally, redlining reduced public investment in marginalized communities, Denary added, leading to a broad scarcity of social infrastructure and resources in low-income communities. Combined, those impacts of historical housing inequities have produced poor health outcomes for low-income communities.

“The communities that were redlined don’t necessarily have parks, or libraries, or all of these really important community assets that then can push families and neighborhoods to ultimately have successful health,” Denary said.

More recently, homelessness in Connecticut has risen over the past two years, following nearly a decade of declining rates. After 2021, Connecticut saw a 13-percent spike in statewide homelessness rates, according to a publicly available point-in-time count by the organization Advancing CT Together. 

According to their latest available data in January 2023, there were over 3,000 individuals experiencing homelessness in the state — a nearly three percent increase from the year prior. While the number of individuals experiencing chronic homelessness remained the same, the report found a seven percent increase in the number of youth experiencing homelessness in the state.

As the Executive Director of New Haven’s Housing Authority, Karen DuBois-Walton ‘89, has helped many of those individuals and families find affordable housing throughout her career. Her experience mirrors some of the Housing and Health Equity Lab’s key findings: regardless of the cause, housing instability exacerbates health issues.

“It’s harder to stay connected with a treatment, it’s harder to keep up with a good health regimen, it’s harder to get access to healthy food, it’s hard to keep up with your medication,” Dubois-Walton said. “In the absence of stable housing, all of those things become more challenging.”

Housing and health are also a two-way street, she added, since health challenges can often cause housing insecurities, as well. Some health issues create obstacles to keeping a job, earning a consistent income, and paying rent on time, Dubois-Walton said.

Chronic conditions, ‘pure stress’

For individuals with chronic diseases, the financial uncertainty and food instability individuals experience while homeless can make managing their illness a daunting endeavor.

Unhoused patients with diabetes, for example, are often unable to use the medication insulin, since the drug requires long-term refrigeration, Denary said. Without a home, patients also might not have access to safe spaces to check their blood sugar or effectively maintain dietary restrictions doctors recommend for diabetes management.

Even for patients without diabetes, tenuous housing conditions can make it difficult for individuals to access nutritious, regular food sources. In 2023, Denary led a study that found that tenants in rental assistance programs were less likely to experience food insecurity. Those tenants also consumed more daily cups of fruits and vegetables than those not covered by the programs.

However, Keene said, it is often not enough that unhoused individuals try to keep a healthy diet. The body’s response to the stress of experiencing homelessness itself can be damaging, leading to post-traumatic stress symptoms and an increased rate of emergency department visits among unhoused people, her research has found. 

Particularly for individuals with chronic diseases like diabetes that require careful dietary regulations, those chronic stress factors can have damaging biological effects, even if patients try to eat as recommended by their doctors.

“Even if individuals that deal with housing insecurities eat healthy food and try to stay healthy, the pure stress of their housing situation leads to a release of hormones that cause blood sugar levels to rise,” Keene told the News.

Mark Colville, a New Haven-based housing activist, highlighted some of those cascading stressors that unhoused people face. Individuals who are evicted and lose their jobs are left unable to pay for rent, forcing many into overburdened shelters, he said.

“However, most shelters will kick out individuals in the morning and leave them stranded on the streets,” added Colville.

Colville said he has also come across scenarios where homelessness has exposed individuals to health and sanitation risks. He described his experience working with a woman who experienced unhygienic and environmentally hazardous conditions while unhoused.

“When she was living under the bridge, there were rats everywhere,” Colville told the News. “She knows that she was consuming rat waste in her food and that she was using her inhaler [for asthma].”

Blending research and activism

For Keene, a major component of her lab’s work entails advocating for practical policy interventions that combat crises at the intersection of housing and healthcare.

In 2021, she published an editorial in the CT Mirror that urged the state legislature to pass laws that ensure universal access to legal counsel when faced with eviction, based on the lab’s findings that evictions are linked with increases in maternal depression, climbing rates of sexually transmitted infections and worse child health outcomes, Keene said. 

Members of the lab have also submitted testimony that describes how raising rent can lead to higher rates of homelessness among low-income families, Denary said. Denary’s testimony encouraged the legislature to implement a stable rent cap in the state and regulations against owners raising rent when new tenants arrive. 

DuBois-Walton said she believes that there is a critical need for research that highlights the connections between housing and health to inform policymakers about the far-reaching consequences of homelessness. 

Given how widespread the impacts of stable housing are, she said, it is economically favorable to keep people in stable housing, instead of disrupting their education, employment and health.

“My hope is that housing researchers and health researchers will continue to keep that kind of research in front of policymakers so that we don’t just do it in a moment of crisis, like [COVID-19],” DuBois-Walton said. “It’s a basic human rights measure that everybody deserves.”

Moving forward, Keene said she aims to increase awareness about housing and healthcare research by participating in conferences nationwide. She also said she hopes the lab can establish a support network for students interested in the research field, especially among students who have experienced housing insecurities. 

Meanwhile, Keene also said she is planning to increase the lab’s engagement with groups that advocate for improved housing access — like tenant organizations, housing activists and legislators—to bridge the gap between research and policy.

“I think if we continue to have good research that shows [housing] is what is good for human development and for human wellbeing, it will get policymakers…to invest in those areas,” DuBois-Walton said. 

But for Keene, public health recommendations are only the first step.

“We’re identifying the health impacts of an unmet housing need, and we’re not going to address through public health interventions; the only way to address that is through housing,” Keene said. 

As of Jan. 15, there were over 800 unhoused people in Connecticut, 177 of whom were in the New Haven area, according to the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness.

The post Blending research and advocacy, Yale’s Housing and Health Equity Lab tackles homelessness through a scientific lens appeared first on Yale Daily News.

In recent years, many experts have used new AI technologies to improve computer vision for image interpretation. However, in an interview with the News, Sophie Chheang ’02, a radiology professor and a practicing interventional radiologist, said that providers could use AI for many other aspects of care delivery within radiology, such as billing and scheduling, reporting, education and communication. 

“One interesting development in this AI journey is that radiologists are no longer afraid of AI replacing them. In fact, they’re trying to find ways to use AI to facilitate their day-to-day workflow,” Chheang said.

According to Chheang, many providers hope to harness AI technologies due to the widening gap between the supply and demand of U.S. radiologists — there simply aren’t enough radiologists to read the increasing number of imaging studies.

With this shortage of radiology specialists, Chheang and her team hope that AI could make their work more efficient, giving physicians more time and mitigating physician burnout.

Chheang also believes that these developments could help healthcare providers throughout the medical field. For example, Chheang cited certain AI algorithms that can identify medical emergencies, such as a brain bleed, before the patient even leaves the scanner. This would allow the care team, including neurologists, neurosurgeons and emergency room physicians, to administer life-saving treatments quicker than before.  

“I think that we are on the cusp of a big AI revolution in medicine,” Chheang said. “In terms of how that’s going to impact the general public, I hope it is for the good. One goal would be to facilitate care to make it easier for people to understand their medical history, to understand their options, and to facilitate interactions with their physicians to make those interactions much more efficient.”

In terms of her continued work within the Yale New Haven Health System, Chheang is focused on product development of tools such as impression generation and report simplification. Some of these products have received awards for their innovation in radiology.

Chheang and her colleagues are launching a startup out of Yale to work on a range of solutions that help radiologists save time and patients better understand their healthcare journey.

Melissa Davis, a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging, also believes that AI will significantly impact both patients and providers. She believes that AI could help clarify healthcare information for practitioners. In many cases, health records are difficult to understand, and AI tools could mitigate these issues.

Currently, Davis and her colleagues are conducting research to use natural language processing, or NLP, algorithms to create more accessible radiology reports.

While many researchers at Yale New Haven Health are seeking to use AI in radiology, Davis and her research team are still aware of AI’s threats. However, she thinks it is essential to engage with AI to help ensure its safety. 

“The largest threat that I see to the use of AI is having non-radiologic experts leverage this technology to supplant expertise,” Davis wrote in an email to the News. “This is why it is so important that radiologists are directly involved in the conversation of AI from build to implementation. Developers do not understand radiologic workflows while this is the radiologist’s day to day. A smart organization will leverage this technology with radiologists as centered in that workflow.”

Spencer Beck, a diagnostic radiology resident at YNHH, also recognized the potential negative effects of using AI in the medical field. 

Nevertheless, Beck said that medical providers are now less concerned due to its increased presence in the hospital room. 

“I think the much more common opinion now is that artificial intelligence will not certainly threaten radiology jobs now or anytime in the near future, but quite the contrary,” Beck said.

Beck said that AI technologies give radiologists a second set of eyes that looks for critical findings in the radiology images. 

Still, Beck also noted that some AI algorithms that pre-scan studies looking for life-threatening diagnoses, such as pulmonary embolism and brain hemorrhages, make mistakes. For him, it is important that AI technologies operate with human physician oversight. 

“It’s really important, no matter what the AI algorithm says that we go through our entire checklist, regardless of whether we have the AI input or not,” Beck said. “We have to give everything a thorough look, regardless.”

Learn more about the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging here.

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Chidum Okeke SPH ’23, Kelvin Amenyedor SPH ’23 and Mukund Desibhatla SPH ’23 first started working together in a graduate-level course titled “Humanities, Arts and Public Health,” taught by Judith Lichtman SPH ’88 GRD ’96 GRD ’97 — director of the Humanities, Arts and Public Health Practice at Yale Initiative, known as H.A.P.P.Y.,  and Susan Dwight Bliss Professor of Chronic Disease Epidemiology. 

For their final project, they decided to create a short film entitled “‘African Wave’ – Voices Amidst Conflict Caught in the Crossfire of the Russian-Ukrainian War.” The movie’s film festival screening preceded the APHA Annual Meeting and Expo, which is currently being held in Atlanta from Nov. 12 to 15.

“Myself and a few classmates were very interested in how come these particular students — African students in light of the Ukraine war — haven’t really been touched on?” Okeke said to the News. “We also felt like it was one of those where people don’t really understand to what extent a lot of these humanitarian crises actually impacts populations.”

Okeke said that Nassim Ashford SPH ’23, founder of NoirUnited International — a global humanitarian organization that advocates for Black and other marginalized communities in development solutions — originally inspired the development of their film. At the outset of the war, Ashford and his organization worked to support African students and other individuals fleeing the Ukraine war. 

While assisting these refugees, Ashford noticed that many of them suffered from increased levels of racial discrimination and a hostile environment.

“Public health knows that racial discrimination impacts health and it causes anxiety, depression and a lower quality of life,” Ashford said. “By mixing these aspects of public health and ingraining it with what social justice means on a larger scale, what’s happening around the world and then thinking about international relations as a whole, we all have the power to stand up and speak for those who do not have access to speak and push resources in a direction for those who do not have resources to meet that need.”

Ashford noted that many students had to leave Ukraine and seek refuge in other European countries, resulting in a lengthy process that sometimes left them in vulnerable political positions.

According to Ashford, many African students were not granted equal legal rights and were overlooked in assistance during the migration and resettlement process. 

“We work with a lot of policy-oriented partners throughout different countries in Europe — in Germany, Poland, and France — to implement policies on the national level within those countries that would enable them to have the same access to legal rights as Ukrainian nationals,” Ashford said. “That allows refugees fleeing crises to seek refugee status within the EU and with that they’re able to come into the country and have certain social benefits that allow them to stay there for a limited amount of time.”

Ashford made multiple visits to Ukraine and Poland and interacted with African students impacted by the war. During this time, Ashford formed multiple relationships with students in these challenging circumstances. 

Many of these students Ashford encountered during his time overseas served as subjects and provided their narratives for the production of this film. 

“We felt as though this was like the perfect opportunity to not only highlight this particular aspect of the Ukraine war, but also kind of visually storytell the realities and make people actually think about ‘how do we even go about supporting these types of things?’” Okeke said. “In future humanitarian crises, I think it kind of pushes people to think deeper about how people are actually being affected and also subgroups that may not be highlighted within the mainstream media.”

Okeke said that the School of Public Health helped cultivate an academic atmosphere that facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration. 

He also emphasized the importance of being creative when making content that resonates with the audience, especially when the artists seek to provoke action and reflection.

“I think really, what it takes to push this needle as it relates to Yale, when you can broadly across different institutions and people willing to be different than the status quo and willing to push the boundaries of what is possible as it relates to storytelling,” Chidum said. 

For Amenyedor, a medical doctor from Ghana, the film had a profound personal connection. Much like the students in the film, he also migrated from an African country and moved abroad seeking to obtain better education opportunities. 

In interviewing different students for this film, Amenyedor said the students highlighted how they experienced a wide range of disparity and racism, especially for asylum-seeking status in other European countries. African and other nationals from developing countries faced a double standard when they were being treated as refugees. 

In the summer, the film was accepted into the APHA Film Festival. While Amenyedor is proud of its acceptance and believes that it will help African students affected by the war, he also highlighted how Ashford’s work helped students on-the-ground. 

“We just did a film, but he actually helps them. He actually goes there to help them,” Amenyedor said.  

The short film can be viewed on Yale’s School of Public Health YouTube channel or here.

The post American Public Health Association screens public health grads’ short film on African student hardships during Russia-Ukraine War appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Over the past few years, Yale New Haven Health has organized forums for physicians, nurses and other staff members to come together and discuss the difficulties of working in health care in response to this burnout trend. 

“What we’re doing here is providing a framework where healthcare providers, physicians and nurses can interact with each other,” said Earl Yancy ’72, founder of Yancy Forums, a Connecticut-based professional development company that is conducting the forums alongside the health system. “Together, they can help each other realize not just professional goals, but also personal goals, from their well-being and to family.” 

In 2010, Yancy founded Yancy Forums to create spaces in professional industries for high-stress workers to exchange their knowledge and experiences. Since then, they have worked with educators, school administrators and businesspeople in conducting these forums. 

The health system piloted its inaugural physicians-only forum in 2020 to help mid-career physicians develop leadership, though these spaces became more important during the pandemic, when doctor burnout rates increased and accordingly led to a major decline in workplace satisfaction and overall well-being. 

Kristine Olson, the chief wellness officer at Yale New Haven Hospital, recently surveyed 30 hospital physicians, advanced clinicians, residents and associates to evaluate the forum’s efficacy and impact on their personal well-being, professional development and institutional loyalty. 

For Olson, the survey showed encouraging outcomes for the initiative. Seventy-one percent said they are more likely to remain with the health system for the duration of their careers, 83 percent said they now have a greater sense of belonging at Yale New Haven Health and 94 percent felt more confident to emerge as a leader. 

“To hear that people felt more confident to emerge as a leader, I think that bodes well for the future,” Olson said. “So, I think that the Yancy Forums are hitting the target as far as making people feel like they have more voice and agency, and are more calm, collected and in control.”

In 2021, due to the underrepresentation of Black health care workers, Olson said that the health systems began conducting forums with Black residents and students. Olson feels that these support groups are crucial for elevating the representation of practicing Black physicians. This increased support and advocacy for physicians can then help patients feel heard and represented. With these efforts to improve the experiences of physicians, both patients and practitioners benefit. 

Yale New Haven Health, following the success of the initial forums, has since then expanded its offerings, creating forums for Hispanics, women and department leaders since 2021. With these new groups, Olson is optimistic that the larger sample sizes will allow the health system to further examine the effectiveness of these forums at curbing physician burnout. She noted that the group’s collegial spirit and small size is beneficial. 

“Collegiality, though it is different from some of the other initiatives we have, is very comprehensive,” Olson said to the News. “It has an emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion, such that people have a unique outlet where they can go to talk about their experiences if they otherwise feel underrepresented.”

Olson and others at Yale New Haven Health are working to implement other initiatives that will improve their colleagues’ sense of connectedness, empowerment and belonging in the workplace. 

For the health system, addressing physician and health care professional burnout is a top priority.

“The more we can get buy-in and support from those at the very top, the more we can move this priority from Yale New Haven Hospital and into the world,” Olson said. “This is something that we can move the needle on to improve our work-life well-being in our society. I think we can make progress faster.”

Deputy Chief Medical Officer at Yale New Haven Health Michael Ivy said that leadership is essential in addressing burnout. Effective leaders can help garner support in confronting healthcare workers’ problems and developing the next generation of leaders to improve structural issues. 

Ivy believes that strategies used by Yancy Forums can serve as a road map for Yale New Haven Health and hospital systems across the nation to change the status quo. 

“We are looking for solutions to improve the quality of the leadership,” Ivy said. “Originally, our outreach to Yancy Forums was around mid-career physicians who we were trying to help develop as leaders. I think [the forums] helped all of them. It was an incredibly valuable experience.”

Ivy noted the positive feedback and value provided by Yancy Forums. 

Most attendees are willingly and enthusiastically participating in the forums due to the results and value they have provided.

“One of the things the Yancy Forums has been really good at is this idea of connection; the members become very connected to each other,” Ivy said. “I think what that creates is real protection against burnout.”

Yale New Haven Health has more than 7,500 university and community physicians and advanced practitioners.

Correction 10/4: Michael Ivy was previously identified as the deputy chief executive officer at Yale New Haven Health but is the deputy chief medical officer. The article has been updated to address this error. 

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The Closer to Free Ride was established 13 years ago to assist the Smilow Cancer Hospital in expanding its fundraising options. With the goal of establishing a fundraising event that could be open to everyone, a cycling event was chosen because it could include patients, workers, donors, community members, healthcare professionals and Yale New Haven Hospital leadership.

“We had 237 riders the first year, and here we are 13 years later with over 2000,” Jessica Scheps, a development event specialist for Yale New Haven Hospital’s Development Office and an organizer of the event, wrote to the News. “I truly believe that it grew so successfully because the way we model this event so that … 100% of the dollars that the riders and volunteers raise can stay right at Smilow and Yale Cancer Center.”

Each cyclist chose from 10-, 25-, 40-, 65- or 100-mile routes. At 6:45 a.m., the cyclists celebrated with an opening ceremony at the Yale Bowl, where they would later return to cross the finish line.

For Scheps, corporate and in-kind sponsors were essential for ensuring that 100 percent of the funds raised by riders and volunteers could go directly to Smilow and Yale Cancer Center. They helped provide food and drinks for the riders at the finish line, and they also covered billboard and TV advertising expenses. Their consistent collaboration has sustained support and expansion of the fundraising cause, which has raised $26 million since 2011. 

Scheps noted that the event receives a lot of support from non-riders alongside the cyclists. This year alone, the Closer to Free Ride included about 600 volunteers who were crucial to the execution of the event.

“Those volunteers really make the event happen,” Scheps said. “They’re feeding our riders at the rest stops, they’re hanging route sign arrows, so people know where to go. They’re directing traffic for busy intersections. They’re parking cars, so it really takes a team of volunteers.”

Kristen Alves is the volunteer coordinator for the Closer to Free Ride. Like Scheps, Alves has worked with the Ride since its inception and began her position as volunteer coordinator last year. For Alves, the ride allows her to engage with the New Haven community by recruiting and supporting the volunteers who participate in the ride. 

She believes that a sense of community develops among both the volunteers who help in the fundraising efforts as well as those who have ride-day responsibilities, such as being a bike marshal or driving alongside cyclists. 

“Our volunteers are amazing,” Alves said. “I cannot say enough great things about them. They really come out, many of our volunteers come back year after year. So it really is Closer to Free. It’s like a big family. And I’m really just so happy to be a part of it.”

The Smilow Salute outside the Smilow Cancer Center on Park St. was one of the primary milestones for bike riders. At the Salute location, patients, survivors, nurses, volunteers and community members gathered to cheer on the riders as they continued on their different routes. Scheps emphasized that this is “the riders’ favorite part of the event” and it enables community members to encourage one another in a meaningful way.

Jaime Krasnitski, a breast cancer survivor and rider, rode on the 10-mile route with her daughter, while her husband completed the 100-mile route. The family began riding together as a team six years ago under the ‘Krazy Krew’ moniker. Over the years, Krasnitski and her family have raised $23,000. 

“They actually have a different jersey for survivors, so you know who’s a survivor, you know who your fellow comrades are,” Krasnitski said. “When they see my jersey they give me a smile. They give me a thumbs up and they give me congratulations in passing.” 

Krasnitski emphasized that, due to her route’s leisurely pace, she was able to engage in conversations with other riders. 

In one instance, this allowed her to connect with another woman cancer survivor. 

“There’s these little moments throughout the day, where you make these personal connections with total strangers,” Krasnitski said. “Those are the moments that make the day Closer to Free, really very special.” 

Krasnitski reflected on the significance and value of Closer to Free in serving as an additional layer of support to address the challenges and obstacles that many cancer patients confront. 

As a cancer survivor, she recognizes the difficulty of coping with cancer and how seeing fundraising events such as Closer to Free supporting patient services is an amazing opportunity for her to give back and foster a community of support for those battling or having battled cancer.

“My ultimate goal is for nobody to have to hear the word ‘You have cancer,’”Krasnitski said. “That’s my dream. That’s my goal. That’s what I believe in.”

Close to Free is accepting donations until the end of September. 

The post Yale New Haven Health system hosts annual Closer to Free Ride in support of cancer research and treatment appeared first on Yale Daily News.

On Aug. 30, the Biden administration publicly announced a list of 10 drugs — the costs of which Medicare can now negotiate in order to reduce Medicare spending and out-of-pocket payments for patients. This modification to Medicare is a component of the Biden Administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The new modifications allow Medicare to engage in direct negotiations with pharmaceutical manufacturers in order to secure price reductions on medications procured through Part D of the Medicare program, which pertains to the segment of Medicare that oversees drug coverage for beneficiaries. 

Experts at Yale are optimistic that the policy change could be transformative for patients — cutting pharmaceutical expenses and generating substantial benefits for Medicare beneficiaries in New Haven and throughout the nation. 

“The Inflation Reduction Act and having multiple components in it to actually control, and to lower the price of prescription drugs is really historic and potentially life changing for many of our patients,” Reshma Ramachandran, an assistant professor of medicine at the School of Medicine, said. “It also gives the government a little bit more authority to actually negotiate with more knowledge in place like having transparency of research development costs and other sorts of input costs.”

Part D of the Medicare program was launched by the Bush administration in 2003 with the aim of lowering medication expenses for individuals. However, during the inception of Medicare Part D, legislators made compromises that outlawed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from directly negotiating with pharmaceutical companies. 

According to Ramachandran, that led to a spike in prescription drug prices.

“Afterwards, because Medicare was not able to negotiate drug prices for our patients, prices rose year after year and became unaffordable,” Ramachandran said. “There hasn’t been a day really where we don’t hear from our patients that they’re not able to pick up a medicine from the pharmacy counter that we prescribe them because of price.”

Given the large number of people on Medicare, these policy initiatives aim to cut government spending on drug prices in the coming years. 

Yale experts agreed that the IRA also seeks to lower high drug costs for patients: enabling beneficiaries to use their limited financial resources towards other expenses, while also ensuring uninterrupted access to critical medications.

“Seniors on Medicare, oftentimes on fixed incomes … would actually be able to use their money, for a multitude of things: not just for prescription drugs, but also for food or housing,” Ramachandran said. “And in fact, more often than not that’s what we saw in recent years because that wasn’t in place. A lot of seniors are actually skipping their medicines or not taking their medicines as prescribed because they couldn’t afford them and they had other necessities to pay for.” 

According to Omar Qureshi ’20 MED ’25, a health policy researcher who focuses on the healthcare marketplace in the United States, Medicare has leverage on drug companies by bringing entire patient markets to pharmaceutical companies.

Qureshi explained that before the Inflation Reduction Act, the price of each prescription drug was determined by pharmacy benefit managers: a third party middle-man who served as an intermediary between drug manufacturers, pharmacies and health plan sponsors such as Medicare.

“The job of the pharmacy benefit manager is they negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies, and the reason that they exist is they’re able to pull together negotiating power,” he told the News. 

Through direct negotiations, the new policy aims to eliminate intermediaries and directly set nationwide Medicare drug prices with pharmaceutical companies themselves. Medicare also would not have to pay fees to pharmacy benefit managers.

“Ultimately, the only way the Inflation Reduction Act reduces expenditure, both on Medicare’s part and on patients’ parts is if they’re able to negotiate better than the pharmacy benefit managers are able to negotiate today,” Quarish said. “That is the underlying assumption … that they’re trying to test with this expensive experiment. Essentially, can we do it better than the private sector?” 

The initial list of medications Medicare set for price negotiation was based on an analysis conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, which identified prescriptions with the largest overall costs and those commonly prescribed to Medicare patients for life-threatening illnesses.

For instance, Eliquis, a drug used to prevent and treat blood clots, is one of the 10 medications on the initial list. Over the course of the previous year, 3,706,000 Medicare beneficiaries relied on Eliquis, resulting in a total Medicare payout of $16,482,621,000, or $4,448 per patient.

But researchers also believe that drug manufacturers may react to this shift in health policy by increasing the launch price of new medicines to hedge against the reduced, negotiated costs. 

“One of the biggest drawbacks to the legislation is that it does not impact launch prices for prescription drugs,” Ramachandran said. “There’s been plenty of research our group and others have done that has actually shown that launch prices for prescription drugs have risen pretty astronomically and across different therapeutic areas. So our patients are really feeling the brunt of that.”

According to Anna Kaltenboeck, a health economist and the head of prescription drug reimbursement at ATI Advisory, a consulting firm that focuses on health care for older adults, the IRA’s revisions to Medicare Part D reduces the amount of money beneficiaries must pay out-of-pocket to receive their prescription to $2,000 per year on average. 

Until now, there has never been a restriction on the amount of money out-of-pocket patients could pay for certain drugs, she explained. 

“Capping out-of-pocket patient costs, people don’t have to spend more than $2,000 a year for their drugs because currently under current law, Medicare patients don’t have an out-of-pocket cap,” Kaltenboeck said. “So some of them spend and spend and obviously it’s like a huge impact for them.” 

However, several lawsuits, including one from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have been filed to prevent more modifications to Medicare’s price setup.

But Kaltenboeck said she is still convinced that direct negotiations are a net-positive result.

“The industry is sort of arguing that there’s not going to be as many drugs and new drugs that come to the market. But what we see in practice, based on prior examples, suggests that’s not true,” Kaltenboeck told the News. “I’m actually relatively confident that the law is relatively pro-innovation because it’s going to force companies to go invest in new drugs.”

The Yale New Haven Health System accepts Medicare coverage for those in the New Haven community.

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The purpose of the summit, which was held in collaboration with CTNext and the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale, was to increase the exposure of Black entrepreneurs, founders and investors so that they could learn and develop in partnership. Yale students and New Haven community members interested in entrepreneurship and venture capital had the opportunity to interact with successful Black entrepreneurs, investors and other professionals at the event. 

“The Black Venture Summit was an opportunity to celebrate founders that have gone on and actually built successful businesses, have raised money and bring in venture capitalists,” said Mea-Lynn Wong SOM ’23. “That way becoming an entrepreneur or becoming an investor becomes a lot more attainable because we’re actually seeing the stories of people within the Black community that have done it before us.” 

Wong and Julian Love SOM ’23 collaborated with CTNext executive director Onyeka Obiocha, to create an event that would stimulate the business ecosystem and empower Black individuals interested in venture capital or entrepreneurship. CTNext is an agency within the Connecticut State Government that focuses on growing entrepreneurship.

Love and Wong found their inspiration for the Black Venture Summit when they arrived on campus and began to share their mutual interest in entrepreneurship and venture capital. At the same time, they realized that there weren’t many Black individuals involved in these fields at the School of Management or in general. 

Conversations with Obiocha from CTNext in the fall of 2022 led to the idea of creating an environment to support Black individuals in venture capital and entrepreneurship. The team then worked together to organize the summit, which featured successful Black founders and venture capitalists who shared their knowledge and expertise.

“Right after that first conversation, we started to work to pull this thing together,” Love said. “We’re just super excited and ecstatic that Yale got some amazing founders, some amazing VCs who lend their time, their expertise and their knowledge and held that program with us last Friday.”

Wong reflected on the importance of holding an event such as this to address the barriers and obstacles that Black individuals face when it comes to embarking on a path in entrepreneurship and business. This event capitalized on the resources and network of the Yale community to support the next generations of business leaders, she said. 

“Something that’s common within the Black community is that we may not have entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in our family or in our networks,” Wong said. “So coming to Yale SOM, and you’re interested in this topic you’re thinking through how can I … access this information or access these people, and you look to your own network and you don’t necessarily see that.” 

While encouraging founders and visionaries to share their ideas, this summit also sought to tackle the shortage of funding and support for businesses formed by underrepresented minorities. Additionally, leaders of the event said they intended to democratize the venture capital process for Black entrepreneurs and investors to interact and share their ideas while utilizing the available resources. 

“There is an opportunity to do more specifically to support Black founders,” Wong said. “So I think of the Black Venture Summit as an event where people can come and learn about existing ventures, potentially pitch their startup and get some funding for it … And it’s an event where you open the dialogue about the lack of funding in the Black community for startups.”

The ultimate objective was to broaden the startup ecosystem and bolster the number of Black-owned businesses, according to Wong. 

Tobi Shitta-Bey SOM ’24 YSPH ’24 was part of the coordinating team for the Black Venture Summit and helped with logistics and planning. Shitta-Bey believed the event was a unique opportunity to increase the representation of Black venture capital and entrepreneurship, which is not as prominent at the SOM or in the industry. 

“[The summit] really brought out that focus to Black venture capital and Black entrepreneurship, which I feel like is definitely not as prominent here right now,”  Shitta-Bey said. “Certainly something that we want to keep building up and really showing like we have that community here and that we want that community to grow.”

In regards to future steps, Shitta-Bey, Love and Wong envision that this event will grow and become a platform to bridge funding gaps and advance representation in the VC space. They also mentioned the importance of creating avenues for conversation and building a pipeline for successful Black entrepreneurs.

“A resounding theme of this summit, especially as we heard from different founders, tech leaders in capital, venture capitalists, like people in the industry was there is a lot of entrepreneurship within the Black community” Shitta-Bey said. “I think it’s really like addressing that funding gap to really [understand] what is currently being done in the larger industry.”

More information about the Yale Black Venture Summit is available on their website.

The post Yale School of Management’s Black Business Alliance hosts inaugural Black Venture Summit appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The speakers shared their experiences with students, staff and New Haven residents on post-conviction legal support, disrupting mass incarceration and community support for individuals facing confinement. The symposium featured panels of individuals involved with The Visiting Room Project, or TVRP. They discussed the goals, development and narrative power of sharing the stories of individuals facing life sentences, which aims to address the burden of facing life incarceration and improving the criminal justice system.

“The uniqueness of this event is the ability to get the community at large to mix with the Yale community and to have a dual experience of what is to be on campus [and] socialize with individuals from many different backgrounds,” said Ray Boyd, a program manager of the Racial Justice Center. “Being a part of the Racial Justice Center [means I get] to stand up for racial equality.”

Before joining the Racial Justice Center and supporting its efforts, Boyd served 30 years in jail. 

Boyd was subject to the challenges of reintegrating into society and the devastating effects of excessive prison punishments on individuals and families — particularly those of communities of color. As a result of his experience, he has worked to ensure that he and those around him fight for racial equality and make cities and towns better and safer places to live.

The symposium fostered dialogue and discussion around the continued fight to overcome and address the systemic and institutional difficulties faced by Black, brown and impoverished white society members regarding incarceration. The panels at the symposium provided ideas and unique insights on how to develop community support for those incarcerated in jail and prison, involving communities in advocating for those facing harsh sentencing and intervening effectively to prevent catastrophic outcomes.

On the significance of improving the current criminal justice system, Boyd noted, “[Individuals] want to definitely come home a better person than when they went into [prision].” Communities can play an essential role in assisting people facing incarceration achieve this betterment by helping in the maturation process of individuals sentenced to jail or prison, providing advocacy and promoting their development to contribute positively and productively to their communities upon re-entry.

Boyd noted that re-entry requires special attention to ensure that those incarcerated have the necessary help before and after their release to reduce the already high recidivism rates. To fill this need, Boyd developed the Next Level Empowerment Program, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that assists the re-entry process of these populations. They offer services and resources to reduce recidivism rates and facilitate a much smoother transition back into their communities.

“What Next Level intends to bring to the city of New Haven is something different and innovative. It’s working with the families of those that are incarcerated post release to make sure that you know that family reunification is being built and the needs are being met,” Boyd said. “We’re not the same people that we were healthwise when we went into prison because we live off of preservative foods and things of that nature. And we also have hypervigilance that we suffer from because we were in those environments … I’m just trying to make the transition a lot smoother for them.” 

Calvin Duncan is a third-year law student at Lewis & Clark Law School who spent 28 and a half years in Angola prison before being exonerated from a life sentence in 2008. While in prison, he fell in love with the law and wanted to help others develop an understanding of the law and legislation that positioned them in their situations. 

Duncan observed that most inmates were disillusioned with life, suffering from poor mental health, or attempting to gain social acceptance by engaging in illicit activities and consuming drugs. However, once in prison, as they aged and aspired to be their genuine, purposeful selves, Duncan saw they could overcome these challenges and change for the better.

Following his release from prison, Duncan met Marcus Kondkar, chair of the Sociology Department at Loyola University New Orleans. Kondkar’s work focuses on criminology, sentencing patterns, re-entry and recidivism. After they met, they started TVRP. The project was initiated to advocate for prison reform and to interview people and let them tell their own stories. TVRP was created to help people see that they must do something to prevent their children from going down the wrong path before it’s too late.

“What I like about what’s happening with The Visiting Room now is that we are going out into the community and then sharing it with the community,” Duncan said. “What I would hope that society will do and say is ‘look, we have to do something to save our children.’”

Everett “Buff” Offray was one of TVRP’s ambassadors and participated in a panel discussion titled “Post-conviction Legal Advocacy: Jailhouse Lawyers and Appellate Defense Attorneys.” After being incarcerated, he strived to achieve a better life and became an inmate counselor at Angola Prison. He served 27 and a half years in prison. While incarcerated, he studied the law and began teaching, eventually assisting fellow inmates in gaining their freedom with the assistance of the Civil Rights Division.

“All of us used to go to our law class just trying to figure what we [can] do in the process of just knowing that we didn’t want to be in prison forever,” Offray said. “So, in the process of that I learned some things about the law, how we were practicing at least, and I was blessed enough that God used me to be able to help some brothers get out of the prison.”

After his release, Offray was employed by the Public Defender’s Office to help individuals transition back into society and aid with cases as a client advocate, similar to what he did in jail. Through his work with cases and re-entry services, he can continue his lifelong mission of assisting incarcerated people. From working on a project to build a post-conviction guidebook for jailed individuals to address ignored issues such as mental health, job insecurity and numerous other unaddressed problems previously incarcerated individuals confront, Offray emphasized the immense work needed in the criminal justice system.

Through his experience in prison, Offray highlights that everyone in prison has a story to tell and that hearing these stories can humanize them and help people empathize with their situations. Offray has encountered stigma and chastisement related to his time in prison. With his overall work and involvement with TVRP, he wants to challenge people’s preconceptions about those who have been incarcerated, as he believes that everyone makes mistakes and that people should be given second chances.

Offray expressed that he was confident that anyone who heard the stories he had heard wouldn’t be able to withhold empathy, as people make mistakes in life. He noted that while some individuals receive second chances after making a mistake, those who end up in prison often do so at a young age without fully understanding the gravity of their actions.

“Most of the guys in prison,” he remarked. “They get thrown in prison [at] 16, 17, 18 at 19 … Kids who don’t understand.” 

Daryl Waters, another ambassador of TVRP, is from a small town and was raised by his grandparents. Although he had a peaceful childhood and adolescence, he regretted deciding to be financially independent. He started selling drugs, which led to him being sentenced to life in prison in 1990. While in prison, he became a leader and a pastor and was involved in helping others with alternative sentencing. 

“While in prison, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to become a leader in prison for over 18 years,” Waters said. “I was a pastor in prison. I led a few clubs. I was part of the re-entry program helping other guys to have alternative sentencing. I started leading a very purposeful life not having to deal with the disease called alcoholism, which I battled with pre-prison. And I began to really love that kind of life. I felt good about myself.” 

Waters was recently released from prison and now works with a parole project to help others transition back into society. He continues to preach at a church and hopes to continue contributing authenticity and transparency to the conversation about helping those in prison transition back into their communities and prevent future crimes.

“I love my participation in The Visiting Room Project,” Waters said. “It is really awesome. I get a chance to tell my story and to own my narrative.”

Jimmie Robinson is a New Haven resident and an ambassador of the TVRP. During his time in prison, he talked about how he and his fellow inmates maintained their calm and peace while in prison and did not become institutionalized. He recalled having conversations about getting out of the darkness of prison, and he now sees himself as an example of that. His time in jail encouraged the importance of making a difference in life and contributing to the change he wants to see. 

“All they know is living in prison. Actually, to take them and put them into society would be a disadvantage. That’s without any help,” Robinson said, speaking on the experience of transitioning back into society. “I like to think of the ambassadors being the light and showing someone out of the darkness. That’s what we’re feeding into.”

Arthur and Tanya Carter have been married for over 30 years. He graduated high school, served in the Marine Corps and worked as a contractor before his life took a turn after getting involved with crack cocaine. He emphasized that one bad decision can change one’s life, and many individuals are serving life sentences in prison due to unfair laws that punish them for their mistakes. 

“So many guys make all of a sudden decisions that change the course of their whole life,” Arthur Carter said. “There are guys in prison in Angola right now that made one bad decision and have life without parole.”

Arthur Carter emphasized the effects of prison on family members, noting that he had to leave his wife and child for 34 years while he served his term.

“The lawmakers that create the laws and the unfairness of the laws are not predicated just on the fact that you’ve given us so many extra years,” Arthur Carter said. “I’d like to talk to you about the other side of people that have been affected by that [the families].”

In providing insight into how life sentences and excessive punishment impact families, Tanya Carter talked about how she felt lonely and depressed, with no one to talk to who could understand her situation. This experience with her husband has demonstrated how she believes the current sentencing of individuals is unfair, leading to good people getting locked up and leaving behind families. 

“I felt abandoned. I felt let down and scared. Very afraid. I went through a lot of depression and there was no one in that entire situation that I could talk to that would understand where I was,” Tanya Carter said. “The feeling of loneliness was overbearing.”

After three decades of separation and the difficulty of adjusting to life without her husband, Tanya Carter finally reunited with her husband. Now she can rejoice in finding people with the same mission of helping people in a similar situation as her husband through TVRP

She hopes efforts such as TVRP’s will extend to every state in the United States and people won’t forget about incarcerated people, as she firmly believes time can change people.

“For the family members that have families that are serving life sentences, I just want to put a message out to all of them [to not] give up. Don’t let go of your people. Keep praying for them,” Tanya Carter said. “Find a way to meet the right people to get your family out because I felt that 34 years was too long.”

To learn more about TVRP, visit their website here.

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Pathways to Wellness, which first launched its online mental health services in 2020, plans to open its first brick-and-mortar site on March 25. The new wellness center is the result of a collaboration between Dr. Natasha Wright and Denise Newton, two clinical social workers based in Hamden. 

Wright and Newton came together to develop a joint practice after personally experiencing difficulty in accessing mental health care as women of color themselves. They hope to expand access to care and provide spaces for women to feel comfortable and safe in utilizing mental health services such as individual therapy, yoga, meditation, expressive therapies and more. 

“Black women face significant disparities in mental health care,” Wright said. “One is access to care and access has several prongs where it is either unable to find a provider or access also being insurance issues. And then the third problem with that would be hours and availability of those said providers.”

By opening a physical site, Pathways to Wellness hopes that it will be able to better serve patients and encourage others to seek their services. With a focus on holistic and integrative care such as expressive and adventure therapies to complement more traditional mental health care programs, providers at Pathways to Wellness aim to provide uniquely tailored services to women. 

Pathways to Wellness planned to launch the women’s center when they were first founded three years ago, but the COVID-19 pandemic stalled these efforts. However, with clinical mental health services in high demand by women, Pathways to Wellness provided virtual clinical services throughout the pandemic to fill the need.

“At the end of last year, we were prompted to then begin to expand our services and begin to look at a brick and mortar home and location” Wright said. “We’re putting it in the greater New Haven area …which then allows us to offer additional services. So now we can roll out the full wellness component of Pathways to Wellness.” 

To start Pathways, Wright said she and her team had to overcome many social barriers. Wright described issues like distrust of the medical system and stigmas surrounding therapy in the communities they hope to serve. However, Wright said that her team has been able to break through these barriers because of the need for their services.

Wright also said that Pathways has received some pushback for focusing specifically on extending care to Black women, with some saying that it was “too niche.” While Wright said that it is niche, she maintained that it is necessary. There is a need for spaces designed to support the underserved, marginalized and often unseen, according to Wright.

Kenyatta Hayes, a wellness practitioner at Pathways, said that another kind of challenge that the center addresses is the many racial biases baked into modern medical practice and countering associated assumptions. 

“There’s research studies, but it’s sort of not fully acknowledged in the forefront,” Hayes said. “If just by changing the race on an index changes the whole treatment plan. That’s insane … But these are things that have just been in place for years that no one second guesses.”

Before working at Pathways, Hayes worked and grew up near Greenwich, where many of her clients did not look like her. Hayes wanted to do more to serve Black women, ultimately leading her to Pathways. 

For Hayes, this work has allowed her to help her clients, but also help herself.

“I’ve wanted to work with Black women and serve people that look like me, like take care of myself,” Hayes said. “Not only am I feeding my soul. I am healing a lot of trauma that has sat with me. I’m helping women. This is going to help their families. So it doesn’t end with me.” 

Pathways’ director of programming D’Amira Kendricks echoed the emphasis on providing value and support to the community, hoping that those who enter the center will feel that it is a space meant for them.

Kendricks also hopes that Pathway will be able to offer a new perspective on therapy and wellness that is grounded in shared experiences and will benefit their clients and other practitioners in the industry.

“I feel like being Black women, we understand what it feels like on the receiving side of the disparity of care,” Kendricks said. “That is something that we all can relate to on so many levels … It’s not a secret. We all know that the systems in place were not designed with us in mind. So we’re here to change that narrative.” 

Pathways to Wellness is located at 60 Connolly Parkway in Hamden.

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