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Dr. Utibe Essien Recognized by National Minority Quality Forum and SGIM

 

The Center for Research on Health Care is happy to congratulate Dr. Utibe Essien, MD, MPH, on being named one of the National Minority Quality Forum’s 40 Under 40 Leaders in Health in 2019.

The NMQF is “a research and educational organization dedicated to ensuring that high-risk racial and ethnic populations and communities receive optimal health care.” Each year, the organization identifies 40 healthcare professionals out of hundreds of nominees as “[those who] represent the next generation of thought leaders in reducing health disparities.”

In addition to his work with the CRHC, Dr. Essien is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine, as well as a Core Investigator with the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP) and the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. He joined the University of Pittsburgh in the fall of 2018.

“It was definitely pretty special,” Dr. Essien said with a smile when asked how he felt about being selected.

As part of the selection process for this honor, Dr. Essien was nominated by one of his mentors from his time spent as a resident and fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, who was herself an inaugural member of the 2016 class of NMQF 40 Under 40.

“I had the support of my mentors here at Pitt as well, who wrote letters of recommendation in support of my nomination,” Dr. Essien said. “Being the ‘new guy,’ it really shows the Division’s trajectory of commitment to diversity and improving disparate health systems.”

Dr. Essien’s interest in strengthening the quality of healthcare delivered to unserved communities began early. As a student at New York University, he joined the PAVERS program, which is “a patient advocacy volunteer program [at Bellevue Hospital] for eager and dedicated [students]… to gain patient interaction experience, and learn about medicine through Emergency Department observation, approved structured tasks, and a series of monthly lectures.”

 “Being in those hospitals, I was seeing patients who looked like me,” Dr. Essien said. “There were patients from underserved, vulnerable populations – and often they were not doing well.”

Dr. Essien describes the trajectory of his medical education as being guided toward “helping those less fortunate, with less opportunities.”

At the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Dr. Essien again saw firsthand the effects of disparity in healthcare.

“Rotation to rotation, there were a lot of differences in care,” Dr. Essien observed. “In particular, who’s around patients – a lot of patients [at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx] were often alone, without a lot of support systems around them.”

During Dr. Essien’s primary care residency in Chelsea, MA, his experience working with local patients influenced his ongoing commitment to improving care for vulnerable populations.

“In Chelsea, many of our patients were Hispanic or Latino,” Dr. Essien explained. “Often I was seeing how social and economic status impacted care for certain demographic groups.”

In addition to being honored by NMQF in April, Dr. Essien was named the winner of Best Poster during the Inaugural Distinguished Professor of Health Equity Poster Walk and Talk at the Society for General Internal Medicine’s annual conference on May 11th, 2019.

Dr. Essien’s research on collective vulnerability in a population of veterans with osteoarthritis found that “people who belong to more vulnerable groups experience more discrimination, pain, and depression… [and] perceived discriminations partially mediates the relationship between vulnerable group memberships and depression.”

This latest recognition is reflective of Dr. Essien’s ongoing work to address how various demographic and socioeconomic vulnerabilities can worsen health. Congratulations to Dr. Essien on his excellent work and his well-earned achievements!

May 31st, 2019