Healthy Babies!

Did you know that in Milwaukee, an African American infant is more than 3 times more likely to die in its first year of life than a white infant?

Here's what we're doing to make sure that ALL babies get their best shot at a healthy life:

1.  Along with our sister MCW Family Medicine programs, the St. Joseph Family Medicine Program is partnering with the State of Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services and Americhoice HMO, to use the Family Centered Medical Home model to develop a pilot program to actively manage obstetrical patients at high risk for low birth-weight, premature, and otherwise at-risk babies .  The pilot project begins in January of 2011.

2. Encouraged by the success of the last year's Obstetrical Skills Clinic for students at the Medical College of Wisconsin, we have decided to repeat this workshop again this year.  It will be held at MCW on November XX, 2010.  I am expecting that we will again be able to practice doing ultrasounds and fetal doppler monitoring on our pregnant clinic volunteers, as well as a knot tying workshop.  All are welcome.

3.  Wheaton Franciscan St. Joseph is sponsoring a talk: Racial Disparity in Birth Outcome:  A Life Course Perspecitve- Late Term Births:  A Pathological Outcome, at its 26th Annual Perinatal Progress Conference, on November 17, 2010, at the Italian Conference Center.  Contact Debbie Gleisberg, BSN, RNC-NIC at 414-447-2622 for further information.

All in a days work....Nurse Jenny takes Karina out for the day!!!

The NEW AND IMPROVED Family Care Center

NEW Space

For those of you teetering on the edge of your seats at the end of last season's cliff-hanger, there IS good news. The Family Care Center is back!  And it's better than ever.   Stay tuned as I add new photos...

OLD Space

Congratulations to Dr. Marks

A long overdue congratulations go out to our own intern, Dr. Sarah Marks, for being elected as the Resident representative to the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Board of Directors, earlier this month at the AAFP National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students.

Rainy Days and Mondays

What a week it has been! It really began last week Thursday. It was a dark and stormy night... Well, actually evening. I was sitting at my desk in my office at the Family Care Center, working on patient charts when the power went off. I took that as a cue that it was time to pack things up. Then out of the corner of my eye I noticed water trickling onto my carpeted floor. "From whence did this water come?" I thought to myself. Shockingly, I turned behind me to find three feet of water outside my window, filling the parking lot, and covering my car up to the hood! Obviously, i wasn't going anywhere soon. As I got up to explore the clinic, I found an inch and a half if water throughout the Family care center. And now it became apparent that the waterfall-like sound that I was hearing was the sound of flood water rushing under the outside doors. The water in the FCC was rising fast. Drat!

Anyway, to make a log story short, i spent the remainder of the evening helping the neighborhood people who found their way to the second floor lobby to the old hospital. Around 11:30 pm, the North Shore Fire department made it over to our location, in order to evacuate us in rafts, and ultimately transported us to the Red Cross shelter at Glen Hills Middle School. I finally made it home after 1:00 am.

The result: the Family Care Center was ruined beyond repair, including our computers and servers, our Electronic Health Record, and most everything less than 2 feet off of the floor. Fortunately, we were already in the process of making plans to move our offices and clinic to another location in the building, so these events will likely excellerate these plans. Hopefully after this coming week, we we will be leaving our temporary home at St. Joseph Hospital , for a longer-term temporary home at the former Cancer Care Center at the old St. Michael's Hospital. Thanks to the over-the-top efforts of Ody Grandos from MCW Information services, our EHR is functioning, and a permanent server being rebuilt. All-In-all, the flash flood of 2010 has been a huge inconvenience, but nothing that we cannot survive. I'll update this blog as things develop.

I Went to a Garden Party!

First Annual Salsa Garden with our Barton Elem partners:)

Dr. Sarah and Dr. Ellen have new BFFs:)

"Dr. Leonard" teaches healthy snacking/edible art:)

Dr. "Reza" checks out school lunches with his new friends

"I can hear Dr. Warsame's heart beat!"

4th is the Second

It's funny how these things work-- an interview on Black Nouveau last week, and now I'll be appearing as a panelist on 4th Street Forum this week (broadcast on channel 10 at 10pm Friday, and rebroadcast on Sunday at 9am). The show was taped today at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and the topic of discussion was "BAD HABITS, MEDICAL COSTS and INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY". The discussion was lively. Check it out!

Of Swine and Little Piggies

Thankfully H1N1 has not turned out to be the apocalyptic disaster that some feared. No one is sure why that is. However, we are not out of the woods just yet. Epidemiologist have noticed the disparity in the number of African Americans who have received flu shots. It is widely believed that this disparity is due to feelings of mistrust of the medical establishment by the African American community. As a result, the state of Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services (DHFS) has partnered with the Cream City Medical Society (the main organization representing African American Health Care Providers), to educate the community about the flu, and more specifically H1N1.

Today I taped a segment on Black Nouveau, an African American news magazine, along with Dr. Janie Washington, to shed some light on the issue. We also discussed First Lady Michelle Obama's initiative to combate childhood obesity. The segment is expected to be broadcast next week on PBS. Return to this site for further details.

Kevin Izard, MD

Dr. Warsame & Dr. Kowalski explore the pyramid!

Our friends at the girl's group home:)

"and Bingo was his name oh!"

Out and About: It's a Physical Thing:)

Once a month, you'll find us out providing free physicals to kids at different sites in Milwaukee. This is through Day Care Services for Children. This way, parents don't have to take one of their precious days off and we can go onsite to offer this service. Besides...it's fun! See for yourself!!!