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Leslie Houston, right, a graduate nursing student, draws blood from Mary Varnell, a dental assistant, during the Heart Healthy Health Fair at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

A nationally touring exhibit celebrating women's contributions to the field of medicine is set to visit Jackson next spring. Meanwhile, a statewide effort is underway to mark the milestones set by Mississippi's own female medical pioneers.

The University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC) will host the exhibition "Changing the Face of Medicine," sponsored by the National Library of Medicine, from Feb. 27 to April 11, 2008, at the Jackson Medical Mall.

In preparation, UMC's Rowland Medical Library under director Ada Seltzer is building an archive collection honoring women in the health sciences, to be displayed alongside the national exhibit. The state healthcare community is being called upon to aid the collection by sharing information about women pioneers in the various health sciences, or historical figures of note relating to medicine and the health sciences.

As it traces the developments of the past, UMC is also taking a forward-facing stance through its 6-year-old National Center of Excellence in Women's Health — a collaborative virtual center focused on providing community education and promoting gender-based medicine across the state.

UMC's is one of only 19 such centers nationwide to earn the CoE designation from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office on Women's Health. The center involves about 50 faculty from various fields — family medicine and OB/GYN, psychology and psychiatry, dentistry, and nursing.

Within this network, ongoing research is bringing light to distinctions between diagnostics and treatment in men and women. Meanwhile, educational efforts range from brown-bag luncheons for the Metro Jackson area to more creative measures in the rural Delta.

"Different parts of the state don't receive information at the same time or in the same way," said Dr. Annette Low, director of the CoE and associate professor in the department of medicine.

"They may not have the news media or computers to know what's going on," she said. "In many places, education needs to be face-to-face through the churches and the schools."

Coming up, the center is also set to host the annual National Women's Check-Up Day Health Fair on May 14 from 8 a.m. to noon at the Jackson Medical Mall. Open to the public, the event has become one that many women count on to take care of their annual screenings — particularly if they have no other access to preventive healthcare.

"Women's health is also about families' health," Low said, pointing to mothers' primary role in determining what their family eats, whether they exercise and when they see a doctor.

"A lot of people think what we do here is limited, but actually it impacts everything else," she said. "If we can teach and get the word out and get women to be on board with healthy initiatives, we'll be on our way."


May 2007

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