Dr. Wendell Kingsolver, a doctor for more than half a century and an advocate for family medicine and rural health, dies at 96

Wendell Kingsolver, M.D.

Dr. Wendell Roy Kingsolver, a longtime physician and advocate for family medicine and public health, especially in rural Kentucky, died Thursday, May 30. He was 96 and lived in Nicholasville.

After graduation from the University of Kentucky and an internship and residency, Kingsolver set up a family practice at Carlisle in his home Nicholas County. He was one of the few physicians in the area and served patients of all ages at all hours in emergency, operating, and delivery rooms, He was among the first physicians certified by the American Board of Family Practice, and trained UK medical students in rural family practice as they lived in his home and learned what a diverse rural medical career was like. In the 1960s he was a medical volunteer in the Republic of Congo, and later on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia and the Newfoundland coast town of St. Anthony. After retiring from five decades of full-time private practice, he was a public-health doctor for the Wedco District Health Department in in Nicholas, Harrison, Bourbon and Scott counties.

Kingsolver was an early adopter of organic farming, and he and his first wife Virginia were founding members of the Sierra Club chapter in Kentucky, the group that built Lake Carnico in Nicholas County, and the First Christian Church in Carlisle, where he was an elder and sang in the choir. He was a board member of the Cane Ridge Meeting House, where the Disciples of Christ denomination began. He enjoyed birdwatching and served a term as president of the Kentucky Ornithological Society. He and Ginny, who predeceased him, established a KOS scholarship for young people interested in the study of birds, and worked to preserve natural land in Nicholas County, some of it donated to the Blue Licks Battlefield State Resort Park.

Kingsolver's survivors include his wife, Eva Lee (Lynam Kanatzar) Kingsolver; son Robert (Paula) Kingsolver; daughter and noted author Barbara Kingsolver (Steven Hopp); and Ann Kingsolver, former director of the Appalachian Center at UK. A viewing will be held Tuesday, June 4, at 2 p.m., followed by the funeral at 4 p.m., at Milward Funeral Home, 391 Southland Drive in Lexington.

Information for this article was taken from the obituary.

Louisville's 'Bos' Todd, national leader in mental health, dies at 93

Bosworth Todd

Kentucky Health News

Bosworth M. "Bos" Todd Jr., who co-founded a pathbreaking treatment center in Louisville for mentally ill youth and the foundation that makes the most mental-health research grants in the nation, died Jan. 22. He was 93.

Todd, a Frankfort native and University of Kentucky graduate, earned an MBA at Harvard Business School and worked in the investment industry. After his oldest son Sam was hospitalized with schizophrenia, he and his wife Joan, who died last year, joined with other parents to form the Schizophrenia Association of Louisville, now part of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

In the early 1980s, he joined attorney Philip Ardery, real-estate broker Malcolm “Mac” Matthews Jr. and Barry Bingham Sr., editor and publisher of The Courier-Journal, to found Wellspring as a transitional home for young people with schizophrenia. "It now has a $40 million budget and offers a variety of services to 1,000 people at multiple locations across Louisville, The C-J's Andrew Wolfson reports.

Todd, Ardery and University of Louisville psychiatrist Herbert Wagemaker also launched the American Schizophrenia Foundation, which became the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, "the nation’s top nongovernmental funder of mental-health research grants," Wolfson reports. "It has backed the research of more than 5,400 scientists in more than 599 institutions around the world."

A celebratory visitation will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 26, at the River Valley Club on River Road in Louisville. Burial will be private. Wellspring is accepting memorial gifts in lieu of flowers.

George Rawlings, who founded industry that recovers health-care costs from patients who get settlements or judgments, dies at 77

George Rawlings

George Rawlings, who made a fortune by starting an industry that recovers health-care providers' costs of caring for patients who later get settlements or verdicts for injuries from accidents and defective products, died Thursday of the blood cancer multiple myeloma. He was 77.

"His foundation’s tax records show he and his company gave away millions to both sectarian charities and evangelical causes, including youth camps in 13 underdeveloped countries and to the late Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, where the divinity school is named for the Rawlings family," reports Andrew Wolfson of the Courier Journal. "He also gave generously to local causes, including $1 million to Baptist Hospital in La Grange and $100,000 apiece to the city of La Grange and Oldham County, when both were experiencing budget troubles."

In a 2018 profile, Wolfson described Rawlings as “probably the richest Kentuckian you never heard of.” His company, the Rawlings Group, is based in LaGrange and employs 1,600 people. Its customers pay it 20 percent of the amount recovered in a process known as subrogation. "Critics have called the subrogation practice cruel because severely injured people can lose most or even all of a settlement — money they counted on to defray lost wages or to compensate for pain and suffering," Wolfson writes. "Rawlings has said the recoveries his firm made reduced health-insurance costs."

UPDATE, March 24: Celebrations of Rawlings' life were held March 23 and 24 in La Grange. Memorial gifts may be made to the Rawlings Foundation, PO Box 794, La Grange KY 40031.

Ernie Scott of Letcher County dies of rare brain aneurysm at 46; had been director of the State Office of Rural Health since 2013

Ernie Lee Scott

Funeral services were held Friday for Ernie Scott, who was director of the State Office of Rural Health in the University of Kentucky Center of Excellence in Rural Health. He did Sunday, March 12, at his home in Partridge, in Letcher County. He was 46.

The cause of death was a "random and rare" aneurysm in the brain, Coroner Perry Fowler told The Mountain Eagle of Whitesburg.

Scott started his career as a radiology technologist, earned a bachelor’s degree in health care administration at Midway College, was director of planning and special projects for Mountain Comprehensive Health Corp. in Whitesburg, and became director of the Office of Rural Health in 2013.

In 2014 Scott received the Emerging Leader Award from the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health, and in 2020 he won the Kentucky Rural Health Association's Dan Martin Award for lifetime contributions to rural health. Last year, the office was one of three organizations in the nation to receive a three-year, nearly $900,000 grant from the federal Office of Rural Health Policy to improve access to health care for veterans living in rural Kentucky and to improve coordination of veterans' care.

Scott is survived by his wife, Tiffany Bullock Scott, and their daughter, Addyson Grace Scott. The couple owned and operated the General Store at Pine Mountain Crossing on US 119 and ran a hospital gift shop. Other survivors include his mother, Iris Jean Scott; siblings Howard Wayne Scott (Renee) and Sherry Scott Geiger (David); and many nieces and nephews.

"To know Ernie was to love him," his obituary says. "He quickly became a friend to all he met. He always greeted folks with a smile and often a big hug. He was a planner, a goal setter, and achiever. He loved his family, friends, church, and his community. He poured his heart and soul into Letcher County (specifically Cumberland River) and made huge impacts in many other rural communities."

His funeral was at Lewis Creek Pentecostal Church, along the Poor Fork of the Cumberland River in Partridge, with burial in the D.L. Creech Cemetery four and a half miles downstream, at Cumberland. Tri-City Funeral Home was in charge. Memorial donations may be made to a health-care scholarship fund in Scott’s name at Commercial Bank, 1701 E. Main St., Cumberland KY 40823.

Robert Slaton dies at 81; was a catalyst for many health projects, including Passport Health Plan and Kentucky Health News

Robert Slaton, Ed.D.

Robert Slaton, a health-care consultant and former Kentucky public-health commissioner who was a catalyst for various health-improvement projects in the state, including Passport Health Plan and Kentucky Health News, died Dec. 27 after suffering a stroke a few days earlier. He was 81 and lived in Louisville.

Slaton, who had master's degrees in education and social work and a doctorate in education administration, was state health commissioner in 1978-79, then ran the Public Service Institute at Kentucky State University and was external-affairs administrator for Trover Clinic, now Baptist Health Deaconness Madisonville, his hometown, from 1983 to 1989. While at the University of Louisville, he was Gov. Brereton Jones' special assistant for health-care reform, executive director of the university's primary-care center, executive director of the Medical School Practice Association and executive vice president of University Health Care, retiring in 2007. As primary-care director, Slaton was part of a small group that planned, developed, and implemented Passport Health Plan, which started in 1997 and became a national model for managed care of Medicaid patients.

As a member of the national advisory board of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, he was the catalyst for funding of the institute's Kentucky Health News by the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. Sitting with Institute Director Al Cross and then-Foundation President Susan Zepeda at a Kentucky Chamber of Commerce luncheon in 2010, he said, "Al, you ought to ask Susan for some money." When Zepeda asked what the money would be for, Cross (who had no idea the proposition was coming) replied that the goal would be improving health coverage in Kentucky news media. The foundation continues to fund Kentucky Health News.

Slaton later chaired the advisory board, helping the Institiute develop a strategic plan. He was a member of the foundation's Community Advisory Council and chair of the chamber's Health Care Policy Council. In 2018, he won the Russell E. Teague Award from the Kentucky Public Health Association for his achievements and contributions to public health.

"Throughout his career in both public service and as a health-care consultant, he provided a politically savvy perspective and an astute management style that enabled institutions and organizations to make significant headway in policy change to improve the health of Kentuckians," his obituary says. "Robert always believed that health care was a right, not a commodity, and he worked very hard in a variety of settings to help move it in that direction."

As health commissioner, "He demonstrated an understanding of social and structural determinants of health that was ahead of its time," the obituary says. "Robert was a consensus builder and a natural organizer who was described as generous and down-to-earth. His talents included problem solving, strategic planning, and organizing a group of people to get a project done. He was proud that over his career he had helped young staff members develop beyond what they thought they could do. He could often see what needed to be done before most people, and he could handle personalities and egos to bring about change in organizations. Robert focused much of his career on building linkages and coalitions between different groups. This was eased by his genuine rapport with people. Robert’s strategic planning skills, insightful opinions, and wise counsel were valued by many leaders in the business, nonprofit, and political world."

He was co-author of two books about management, From Green Persimmons to Cranky Parrots, and Caught in the Middle Management. At the time of his death, he was working on a book about his mother’s life, based on the diaries she kept for decades. As he moved into assisted living, Robert was already making plans for his next book, stories of his colorful adventures as a parole officer in Western Kentucky in the 1960s. He was a delegate to the 1992 Democratic convention.

Slaton is survived by five adult children, Andrea, Lyle, Tom, Danny (Elizabeth), and Mike (Jake), and three grandchildren: Thia, Henry, and Lila. He is also survived by his companion, Mary B. Bradley, and her two children, whom he very much thought of as his own: Lizi Hagan and Clay McClure.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. ET Saturday, Dec. 31 at Pearson’s, 149 Breckenridge Lane, Louisville. Visitation will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. ET Dec. 30 at Pearson’s. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Down Syndrome of Louisville, the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, or the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Services Monday for Dr. Russell Travis, health-care leader, 87

Russell Travis, M.D.

Funeral services will be held Monday in Lexington for Dr. Russell Travis, a retired surgeon who was a longtime leader in Kentucky's health-care community. He died Oct. 29 at the age of 87.

Travis served as chair of the state Board of Medical Licensure and the state Workers' Compensation Board and held various positions with the American Academy of Occupational Medicine. He was president of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and a longtime member of the Joint Washington Committee of Neurosurgery, which helped set national policy for neurological medicine. 

He was a visiting professor at medical schools in Kentucky, South Carolina, Michigan, Mississippi and Virginia. His many awards included the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Academy of Independent Medical Evaluators and the Service to Mankind Award from the Kentucky Medical Association.

Travis grew up in Glasgow but was born in Jenkins, on the Virginia border, and he "would often speak fondly of his years in the mountains," his obituary said. "He gave back to the Appalachian community for over 30 years, by providing on-site neurosurgical care to those residents who lacked access."

He is survived by his wife, Jill Travis, four children, a brother and six grandchildren. Visitation will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6, and 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Nov. 7, with funeral services following immediately, at Kerr Brothers Funeral Home on Harrodsburg Road. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to Kentucky Easter Seals or the Lexington Humane Society.

Celebration of the life of Dr. Douglas Scutchfield is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at UK and will be livestreamed on YouTube

By the University of Kentucky College of Public Health

Dr. F. Douglas Scutchfield

An author, diplomat, doctor, editor, educator, father, founder, friend, grandfather, husband, mentor, researcher, veteran, and so much more, Dr. F. Douglas Scutchfield, inaugural dean of the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, passed away Monday, May 23, in Lexington.

A celebration of life will take place in the Lewis Honors College atrium at UK Wednesday, June 22, at 4:30 p.m. and will be livestreamed on YouTube here. After the ceremony, there will be an opportunity to share stories about the man who was known in the community as "Scutch." 

Frank Douglas Scutchfield was born on April 23, 1942, in Wheelwright, attended Hazard High School and Eastern Kentucky University, and received his medical degree from the University of Kentucky in 1966.

Public Health Passion and Impact

Scutch, after seeing firsthand the poverty in Appalachia, gravitated toward the field of public health and preventive medicine. He completed post-graduate medical education at Northwestern University, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UK. He holds honorary doctoral degrees from Eastern Kentucky University and the University of Pikeville.

He served as co-editor of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine from 1995 to 2014 and launched the Journal of Appalachian Health in 2018. He is the author of more than 200 papers, book chapters, and technical reports, and has edited several books.

Scutch was a founder of the College of Community Health Sciences at the University of Alabama and founded the Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego State University. He returned to his home state of Kentucky and founded the then School of Public Health at UK in 1997 and became the Peter P. Bosomworth Professor of Health Services Research and Policy.

Scutch held faculty appointments in UK’s College of Public Health and the College of Medicine. He was a diplomat of the American Board of Preventive Medicine and of the American Board of Family Practice from 1972 to 1985. He held fellowships in both the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American Academy of Family Practice.

Scutch held many national positions in professional organizations, including president of the American College of Preventive Medicine, and received several awards from those organizations, including the American Medical Association’s Distinguished Service Award.

Dr. Julia Costich, who succeeded Scutchfield as the public health college’s Peter P. Bosomworth Professor of Health Services Research, told Kentucky Health News, “Public health is about doing things for populations, but Scutch’s gift was relating to individuals—students, colleagues, prominent leaders—as individuals. His generous nature was tempered by a deep need for reciprocation. This was part of what drew him to the work of Thomas Merton, who articulated the need for human contact to bridge the spiritual gulf.”

Scutch earned the UK Libraries Medallion for Intellectual Achievement in 2017. In his acceptance, he said his interest in Merton and the humanities reflected a part of his philosophy of being a physician: “I am a firm believer in the importance of humanity to those of us in the health professions. We do not treat a disease; we treat a person, thus we must know the humanness of the individual in front of us, as well as the diagnosis and treatment of their disease.”

In 2019, Scutch received the Sedgwick Memorial Medal for Distinguished Service in Public Health from the American Public Health Association. Recipients of this award, known as the most prestigious award offered from the APHA, are held in high esteem, as they are nominated by their colleagues and recognized for their dedication to service and accomplishment in the field of public health.

Scutch had an international reputation and was a consultant to government and non-governmental organizations in Panama, China, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Germany, as well as the U.S. But he never forgot his hometown of Wheelwright, which was one of Kentucky’s biggest coal towns when he was growing up.

Scutch most recently served as chair of the accreditation committee of the Public Health Accreditation Board, which accredits local and state health departments, and spurred Kentucky to be a leader in getting its departments accredited. It was one of his latest accomplishments in a life devoted to public health.

Remembering Scutch

Many of Scutch’s students will remember him fondly. Former student, Dr. Scott Keel, said he was “so honored to be one of the many he took time to mentor. I am forever grateful, forever impacted, and forever changed. He made a difference in my life.”

Glen Mays, professor and chair of Health Systems, Management and Policy at the Colorado School of Public Health, recalled, “I began working with Scutch in the mid-1990s while I was still a graduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill, after meeting him at a conference. Our shared goal was to build a robust national program of research that could identify how best to organize, finance, and deliver public health services across the U.S.”

“In less than a decade Scutch had accomplished this goal, with a multi-million-dollar research program, dozens of graduate student trainees, and a nationally renowned conference based at the University of Kentucky. I was honored to join Scutch in this enterprise from 2011-19 and serving in the endowed professorship that bears his name. One of Scutch’s lasting legacies is his ability to create big new things out of nothing to solve problems that really matter to people.”

The F. Douglas Scutchfield Endowed Professorship was established at the UK College of Public Health in 2008 to honor Scutch’s many years of service to the college. In addition, the college established a Faculty Scholarship for the Future of Appalachian Health, which provides scholarships to students pursuing an MPH degree who are from an Appalachian county in Kentucky, have a commitment to improving heath in the region, and a desire to return to this region to promote and improve public health – just like Scutch.

“The legacy of Scutch was his commitment to service – to the discipline of public health, to the academic and medical communities, and to those who were fortunate enough to work with and learn from him,” says Donna Arnett, Dean of the College of Public Health. “Scutch will forever be memorialized as a public health hero, champion, and humanitarian.”

Scutch will be remembered and missed by a myriad of his colleagues, friends, family, and students. One thing that everyone will remember about Scutch was his big, infectious smile and laughter.

A full obituary can be found here.

Dr. Douglas Scutchfield, an international leader in public health and a mentor to many in Kentucky, died Monday night

UPDATE, June 12: Scutchfield's memorial service will be at 4 p.m. June 22 at UK's Lewis Honors College. In lieu of flowers the family suggests donations to the Scutchfield Endowment Scholarship Fund at Eastern Kentucky University, the UK College of Public Health, or the UK opera program.

F. Douglas Scutchfield, M.D.

Dr. F. Douglas Scutchfield, a public-health leader for the world, the nation and his native Kentucky, died Monday night after being hospitalized for several weeks with pneumonia.

Scutchfield recently served as chair of the accreditation committee of the Public Health Accreditation Board, which accredits local and state health departments, and spurred Kentucky to be a leader in getting its departments accredited. It was one of his latest accomplishments in a life devoted to public health.

A native of Wheelwright in Floyd County and a graduate of Hazard High School and Eastern Kentucky University, Scutchfield earned his M.D. at the University of Kentucky, where he held an endowed professorship in the College of Public Health, of which he was founding director when it was the School of Public Health. He was also a professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the Martin School of Public Policy and Administration, founding director of the Center for Health Services Research and Management, and associate dean of the College of Medicine, where he chaired the Department of Preventive and Environmental Medicine. He founded the Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego State University, was a founder of the College of Community Health Science at the University of Alabama and also taught at the University of California-Irvine.

Scutchfield was an editor of many academic health journals, founding co-editor of the Journal of Appalachian Health and an editor of a new book, Appalachian Health: Culture, Challenges, and Capacity. Here's a discussion of it with the other editor, Randy Wykoff of East Tennessee State University.

Julia Costich, who succeeded Scutchfield as the UK College of Public Health's Peter P. Bosomworth Professor of Health Services Research, told Kentucky Health News, "Public health is about doing things for populations, but Scutch’s gift was relating to individuals—students, colleagues, prominent leaders—as individuals. His generous nature was tempered by a deep need for reciprocation. I think this was part of what drew him to the work of Thomas Merton, who articulated the need for human contact to bridge the spiritual gulf."

Scutchfield and Paul Evans Holbrook Jr. wrote The Letters of Thomas Merton and Victor and Carolyn Hammer: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (the Jesuit motto, "For the greater glory of God"), published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2015. The book helped Scutchfield earn the 2017 UK Libraries Medallion for Intellectual Achievement in 2017, which he called "a coda to my academic career." In accepting it, he said his interest in Merton and the humanities reflected a part of his philosophy of being a physician: "I am a firm believer in the importance of humanity to those of us in the health professions. We do not treat a disease; we treat a person, thus we must know the humanness of the individual in front of us, as well as the diagnosis and treatment of their disease."

Two years later, he won the top award from the American Public Health Association, the Sedgwick Memorial Medal for Distinguished Service in Public Health. He was a charter diplomat of the American Board of Family Practice, a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine, which he served as a regent and president. He was secretary-treasurer of the Association of Schools of Public Health and a board member of the Public Health Foundation, which presented him with the Theodore R. Ervin Award. He In 2004, he received the Balderson Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Public Health Leadership Network.

Scutchfield was a member of the American Medical Association House of Delegates and served as chair of the AMA Section Council of Preventive Medicine on several occasions. He was vice chair of the AMA’s Council on Medical Education, and represented the AMA as a member of the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education, the Liaison Committee on Specialty Boards, the American Board of Medical Specialties and the Committee on Allied Health Education and Accreditation. He received AMA’s Dr. William Beaumont Award as its outstanding young physician in 1985 and its Distinguished Service Award, the highest recognition of a physician, in 2003.

Scutchfield had an international reputation and was a consultant to government and non-governmental organizations in Panama, China, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Germany, as well as the U.S. But he never forgot Wheelwright, which was one of Kentucky's biggest coal towns when he was growing up, then-Libraries Dean Terry Birdwhistell said in 2017: “As a scholar, teacher, mentor, administrator and public health advocate, he has never forgotten his Floyd County roots even as he became internationally recognized and honored.”

During the pandemic, Scutchfield worried about the damage done to his profession, said Al Cross, director of UK's Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and publisher of Kentucky Health News: "At our last lunch, he and I talked about writing a 'where we go from here' essay as a bookend to the one we published on March 1, 2020: Is our political system properly serving our public-health system? The answer was no, and it got worse, and it hasn’t gotten any better. May Doug Scutchfield’s life inspire us to stand up to officials of all stripes who damage the discipline of public health and thus the health of the public."

Scutchfield is survived by his wife, Phyllis; his son, Alex; and his brother, Scott. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Eula Hall, one of the best friends the poor in Eastern Kentucky ever had, dies at 93; one of the region's saints, Rep. Rogers says

UPDATE, May 17: The New York Times obituary gives a more complete view of Hall's life.

Hall is the subject of this 2013 book. In the cover photo,
she stands in her clinic's ruins after a fire destroyed it.

Eula Hall, who founded a clinic to serve the poor in one of the poorest parts of the nation, the heart of Central Appalachia, died Saturday. She was 93.

An anti-poverty worker in the 1960s, Hall founded the Mud Creek Clinic, Kentucky's first rural clinic for low-income families, with $1,400 in donated money in 1973. It is now named for her.

“Nothing comes easy up on Mud Creek,” Hall’s longtime friend and ally, former Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo, told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “It was always a fight.”

Hall was also president of the Kentucky Black Lung Association and "fought for better water service and free lunches for schoolchildren," reports the Herald-Leader's Karla Ward. "Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Hall Funeral Home in Martin. Visitation will begin after 6 p.m. Sunday will continue all day Monday at the funeral home."

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article251262069.html#storylink=cpy

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called Hall a "one-of-a-kind Kentuckian . . . She was among the toughest women I’ve ever met, overcoming one challenge after another to serve those who had nowhere else to turn. Even after a fire burned down the clinic, her team didn’t miss a single day. Slowing down was simply never an option. When we spoke on the phone just a couple of weeks ago, Eula’s entire focus remained on those she could help.”

Hall's congressman, U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, said in a release, “Eula Hall was one of Eastern Kentucky’s greatest saints. . . . Driven by her own experience with poverty, Eula dedicated her life to ensuring every person had access to medical care, regardless of their ability to pay for services or prescriptions. She pioneered hope on Mud Creek and far beyond the borders of Floyd County. When I called Eula on her 90th birthday, she was doing what she loved most: working at the clinic that she transformed from a home-grown operation into a modern facility with state-of-the-art equipment. She will always be a legend in Kentucky’s Appalachian region and an inspiration to never stop serving those around us.”

Kentucky loses a health champion who advocated for health equity and community-based solutions; Dr. Gil Friedell was 91

Dr. Gilbert "Gil" Friedell

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Dr. Gilbert Friedell, who was a fierce advocate for health equity and finding community-based solutions to the many health issues that plague Kentucky, died Sept. 23 at the age of 91.

His mantra,"If the problems are in the community, the solutions are in the community," was a drumbeat message that will continue to guide the efforts of many who knew him.

"It is difficult to imagine a more selfless man of medicine," said veteran journalist Al Smith.

Friedell was described in his obituary as an "avid student," attending Harvard College in 1943 at the age of 16 and graduating from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1950. He then went on to receive his medical training in pathology in Boston and served as a physician in the Navy reserves for two plus years.

He was a medical faculty member at Harvard, Boston University, the University of Massachusetts and the University of Kentucky, where he became the first director of the Lucille Parker Markey Cancer Center in 1983, with a focus on cancer prevention.

He stepped down as the director in 1990 to run Markey Cancer Control Program, where he worked to convey breast-cancer information to the public and health professionals through the Kentucky Cancer Program, the Kentucky Cancer Registry and a regional information service for Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas -- all organizations that he helped to create. He retired from this position in 1998.

Friedell was an unwavering advocate for increasing health care access to Kentucky's underserved citizens, especially those who lived in Eastern Kentucky. To that end, he co-founded Kentucky Homeplace, a lay health-worker program funded by the Kentucky General Assembly that facilitates access to health-care services in 30 Eastern Kentucky counties.

Since 1994, the program has served over 161,968 people who have received access to more than 4.9 million services valued at $324.4 million, according to Fran Feltner, director of UK's Center for Excellence in Rural Health, where the program is based.

"Gil was a true friend and mentor," Feltner said. "He truly understood the community."

Feltner recalled how they testified to lawmakers in Washington and Frankfort about the value of community health workers and helped pass the national Patient Navigator Bill, which recognizes the need for improving access to care.

"His legacy will never be forgotten and his love for the community will live in my heart and in our work as we continue the lessons learned," Feltner said.

Friedell's legacy will also continue in the work of the Friedell Committee on Health System Transformation, which he founded. He asked that it not bear his name, but the other members unanimously overruled him. The committees' mission is "to improve the health of Kentuckians by promoting an effective, values-based health system, advocating for community action, and measuring the system's performance."

"Gil indeed touched each of us deeply," said Carolyn Dennis, executive director of the committee. "His determination for a just healthcare system that respects the inherent right of every individual to receive the best care possible was contagious; everyone associated with the Friedell Committee carries that same passion and sorrow in his passing. . . . He will be sorely missed but his legacy will live on by all who knew and loved him."

Dennis described Friedell as a "consummate gentleman," partial to wearing a "jaunty bow tie and beret," who was "tireless in his quest to engage leaders in every geographic corner of the state to improve the health of their communities."

Friedell was the recipient of numerous awards, authored more than 200 articles in medical publications, served on many state and national public-health committees, and co-authored The Great Diabetes Epidemic: A Manifesto for Control and Prevention that published in 2014.

"The very vibrant Big Sandy Diabetes Coalition . . . is a testament to Gil, who was really its founder with his periodic trips here to encourage us and educate us about the diabetes epidemic," said Prestonsburg lawyer John Rosenberg. "He infected us with the belief that the solution to better health care was in the community, and that took hold. He was a wonderful man, in his quiet way, a great leader and a great spirit!"

Friedell's obituary said, "To those who knew him, Gil will be remembered for his wise personal and professional counsel, incisive questions, wit, infectious chuckle, poetic annual holiday letters and fondness for bow ties. Gil dedicated his life to transforming inequitable systems to make the world a better place."

Smith, a Friedell Committee member, said, "We remember him best when we do all we can for the good health of Kentucky."

Friedell is survived by Jan, his wife of 67 years, four of their five children, seven grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter. A memorial service will be held in Charleston, S.C. in the fall with details to follow. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Gilbert H. Friedell Resident Scholar in Cancer Prevention and Control Fund, University of Kentucky, Markey Cancer Center, 800 Rose Street, Lexington KY 40536, to the attention of Elisha Maxson.

Dan Martin, rural health champion in Western Kentucky, dies at 92

Dr. Dan Martin
(Photo from Madisonville Messenger)

Dr. Dan Martin, a leader in rural health for Western Kentucky, died Aug. 14 at the age of 92.

The Harvard Medical School graduate moved to Madisonville in 1965, where he served in many roles to improve the health of his community and surrounding areas.

He served for many years as medical director of the Hopkins County Health Department, where he established a dentistry clinic, later named in his honor. He was the executive director of the Trover Clinic Foundation and was instrumental in bringing a medical residency program to Madisonville from the University of Louisville; and he helped found the Western Kentucky Area Health Education Center and a nurse anesthetist program.

He is also credited with much of the growth of the Madisonville Community College and helped create health and human-services organizations throughout the community.
.

In appreciation for his service, the Kentucky Rural Health Association created an annual award, the Dan Martin Award, for lifetime achievement in improving rural health care in Kentucky, presented each year at its annual meeting. Martin was named its first recipient in 2003.

"His dedication to improving rural health care in Kentucky and passion for medical education extended until the end of his life," says his obituary in The (Madisonville) Messenger.

Prior to coming to Kentucky, Martin served in the Navy during World War II as a hospital corpsman working with blind soldiers at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital and the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind. He was also an associate professor of preventive medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Martin was preceded in death by his wife, Gladys C. Martin; and his brother, William T. Martin Jr. He is survived by his children, Dan "Andy" Martin Jr. of Atlanta, Dr. Joel Martin (Julie) of Thousand Oaks, Calif., Dr. Paul Martin (Dana) of Atlanta, and Dr. Nina Martin of Nashville; and five grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at First Presbyterian Church of Madisonville at 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, with visitation beginning at 2 p.m. Memorial contributions may be made to Mahr Park Charitable Trust, P.O. Box 339, Madisonville KY 42431.

Dr. William P. 'Buddy' McElwain, health commissioner for Govs. Louie Nunn, Wendell Ford and Julian Carroll, dies at 84

Dr. W.P. McElwain in 2012

Dr. William P. "Buddy" McElwain, who was Kentucky's health commissioner under three governors in the 1970s, died Tuesday, March 13. He was 84.

McElwain was a graduate of Daviess County High School, Murray State University, the University of Louisville School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University. After an internship and two-year residency, he served eight years in the U.S. Public Health Service, working at Indian reservations and the Oklahoma health department.

He was associate director of the Fayette County Health Department in 1970 when Gov. Louie B. Nunn, a Republican, named him state health commissioner. He kept the job under Gov. Wendell Ford and returned to it under Gov. Julian Carroll, another Democrat, until 1978, when he returned to medical practice and later worked at the University of Kentucky. He was executive vice president for medical affairs for the Kentucky Health Care Access Foundation, which Democratic Gov. Brereton Jones and the legislature created to provide health care for people who were below the poverty line but did not qualify for Medicaid.

From 1994 to 2012, he practiced at Rockcastle Regional Hospital and Respiratory Care Center in Mount Vernon. After retirement, he remained in the area.

McElwain is survived by a brother, Bob McElwain; sons Paul, David and Brandon McElwain, daughters Nancy Curtis and Ruth Childers, 10 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. The funeral will be private. Memorial donations may be made to The Miracle Fund, Rockcastle Regional Hospital, 145 Newcomb Avenue, Mt. Vernon KY 40456. For his full obituary, click here.

After their child died from a drug overdose, a Kentucky family joined those who are choosing to tell the truth about addiction

By Traci Thomas
Kentucky Health News

The obituary for Katherine Bryant Reynolds, published in the April 5 Lexington Herald-Leader, was engagingly frank: "To honor Katie's life as her forever supportive family, we will strive to reduce the stigma and further the understanding that addiction is not a severe character flaw to be punished and shamed, rather a tragic chronic relapsing brain disease deserving of respect and compassionate treatment."

The Bryants are among many bereaved families across the country choosing to publicly expose addiction as a cause of their loss. Their choice to replace "died suddenly at home" with "died after a long struggle with addiction" challenges the shame often associated with substance abuse.

Katherine Bryant Reynolds

Katie, originally from Richmond, was 37. She lost her battle to drug addiction in her Lexington home on March 28. According to the Fayette County coroner, her death "was a result of poly drug abuse including levels of opiates above the therapeutic range and methamphetamine," her mother, Luanne Bryant, told Kentucky Health News in an email.

"Our being open was right for us. Right for Katie," Bryant said. "If we name something and bring it into the light, we can begin to rob it of its power to destroy. I hope others will, too."

Kentucky is one of five states in the nation with the highest rates of death linked to overdose: 29.9 per 100,000. West Virginia has the highest rate at 41.5 per 100,000, and neighboring Ohio has the same overdose death rate as Kentucky.

State officials have taken several steps to deal with the issue, but Bryant said society is offering no real solutions to the opioid epidemic, "often undermining recovery and endangering those with addiction."

She explained, "Effective and affordable resources have not been made available to our family. From drug court to multiple touches with social services and treatment facilities, to repeated incarceration with abundant access to drugs while incarcerated, the current system is broken and the toll it is taking on individuals and their families and the cost to society is devastating."

Katie Bryant with mother Luanne and sister Kennedy Konshak

Though frustrated by the lack of resources and grappling with the loss of her daughter, Bryant said Katie will be remembered as a young woman full of spirit, spunk, courage and ideas of intellect.

"By sharing Katie’s cause of death, we were refusing to play into stigmatizing opiate addicts by behaving as if this particular disease is shameful and addicts are only statistics," Bryant said. "If the families of the victims of fatal opiate addiction included that in obituaries, maybe people in general would better grasp how opiates are ravaging generations of young people and their families."

Dr. David Stevens of Lexington, who led successful effort for Kentucky's first local-government smoking ban, dies at 87

Dr. David Stevens (Lexington Herald-Leader photo)

Dr. David Stevens, a retired orthopedic surgeon who was instrumental in getting a smoking ban in Lexington, died Monday at age 87.

Stevens, a Republican, served on the nonpartisan Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council from 1992 to 2008 as an at-large and 5th District member. He was a member of the merger commission that drafted the charter for the merged government, Tom Eblen reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

“David Stevens lived a life that lifted up and cared for others,” Mayor Jim Gray said in a statement. “He was a touchstone for all things good and generous in Lexington. He epitomized what a citizen and a gentleman should be, and indeed in countless ways, he made our city a better and healthier place to live.”

Ellen Hahn, a nursing professor at the University of Kentucky, and a leader of smoke-free efforts in the state, told Eblen that Stevens became convinced of the need for a smoking ban in Lexington after attending a two-day conference that she helped organize in 2000 about the dangers of second-hand smoke. It took him three years to persuade the other council members to enact the region's first municipal smoking ban.

“He was a visionary,” Hahn said. “And he provided the leadership in a steady, calm way. He cared about public health.”

Stevens was involved with the Lexington-Fayette Board of Health and many other agencies and civic efforts. Stevens was a founding member and board chairman of the Central Kentucky Blood Center in 1968, and its first donor. He  taught at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, was president of the Fayette County Medical Society and was a member of the University Community Caucus of the National League of Cities, Eblen reports.

He was in private practice as an orthopedic surgeon for 20 years, and then spent two more decades as chief of staff of Shriners Hospital for Children. And for many years, he was the sports physician for Henry Clay High School and Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.  He grew up in Louisville and graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., in 1951.

Visitation will be 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday at Milward Funeral Directors on Broadway and at 10 a.m. Saturday at Crestwood Christian Church, 1882 Bellefonte Drive. The funeral will be at the church at 11 a.m. Saturday, with a reception afterward. There will be a private burial at Lexington Cemetery. 

Lung transplant recipient who battled bureaucracy to get coverage, dies five days after being widowed; funeral Sunday

"Katie Prager, the Kentucky lung transplant recipient whose story with her late husband, Dalton, touched millions, has died," reports Cheryl Truman of The Lexington Herald-Leader. Katie and Dalton met online and married in 2011. "Both had cystic fibrosis, and both had lung transplants that failed."

(Lexington Herald-Leader photo.)

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article103380187.html#emlnl=Afternoon_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

Katie, 26, died in her Flemingsburg home early Thursday, a family member said.

Debra Donovan, Katie's mother, said it was Katie's wish to be surrounded by loved ones in her final moments. “Early this morning she gained her wish of being at home, in her bed, surrounded by her mom, dad, brother and her dogs, dying peacefully away from the hospital, tubes, IVs,” Donovan, wrote Thursday morning on Facebook.

"By the time Katie's close-knit Fleming County family gave her a Christmas-in-September party on Saturday, she was underweight, her once-abundant blonde hair sparse, her color waxen." Truman writes. "She had made a decision to discontinue all life-extending measures except for dialysis and had entered hospice care. She was sleeping a great deal, using an oxygen tank and getting weaker by the day."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article103380187.html#emlnl=Afternoon_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

Hours before the start of the family gathering, Dalton died in his hometown of St. Louis. "He had been trying to get to Kentucky to see his wife, who was in Hospice care after her own failed lung transplant, one last time," Truman writes.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/fayette-county/article102599882.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article103380187.html#emlnl=Afternoon_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

Katie and Dalton received national attention because they both had "the Burkholderia cepacia infection, which limited the number of surgery centers specializing in their conditions," Truman writes. "Dalton received his lung transplant in November 2014. Katie, after a lengthy bureaucratic snafu over insurance coverage, received her new lungs at the University of Pittsburgh medical center in July 2015." Both transplants were unsuccessful.

"During the Saturday Christmas party, Katie said that she believed in an afterlife and would see her husband again," Truman writes. "At the family gathering in Ewing after Dalton’s death, Katie said, 'I’ll see him soon.'”

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article103380187.html#emlnl=Afternoon_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

Visitation for Katie will be 4 to 9 p.m. Sunday at Elizaville Christian Church in Flemingsburg. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Monday at the church.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article103380187.html#emlnl=Afternoon_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article103380187.html#emlnl=Afternoon_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

Forrest W. Calico, national leader in rural health care, dies at 75

Forrest W. Calico

Dr. Forrest W. Calico, a nationally recognized expert on rural health-care quality, died Monday at his home near Crab Orchard "after striving against multiple myeloma for several years," said his obituary in the Lexington Herald-Leader. He was 75.

A native of Garrard County, Calico received his medical degree from the University of Kentucky in 1966. He also held a master's degree in public health from Harvard University. In the U.S. Air Force, he was a flight surgeon at Area 51 in Nevada, a family physician, residency director and hospital administrator, earning the Bronze Star. He was president and CEO of Appalachian Regional Healthcare from 1993 to 1999, a health-systems adviser to the federal Office of Rural Health Policy and a senior quality adviser to the National Rural Health Association. In 2007 he was named a Rural Hero by the National Rural Assembly and in 2010 entered the UK College of Public Health Hall of Fame.

In retirement, Calico remained active at the state and local levels, serving on the boards of the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, the Friedell Committee for Health System Transformation and the Lincoln County Board of Health. In 2012 he published a memoir, Out of the Blue, with the subtitle "How open doors and unexpected paths set the course of my life."

Calico is survived by his wife Patricia Calico, their son Jefferson and wife Cari, daughter Tricia and husband Wes Cohron, his sister Helen Eden, a nephew and six grandchildren. A celebration of his life will be held Saturday, June 18, from 2 to 5 p.m., with a memorial service at 3 p.m., at The Church at Cedar Creek at 5787 US 150, east of Stanford. Memorial donations may go to The Friedell Committee, PO Box 910953, Lexington KY 40591, or the Dr. Patricia A. Calico Endowed Nursing Scholarship at UK, 315 College of Nursing Building, Lexington KY 40536.

Dr. Rice Leach, outspoken leader in public health at the local, state and national levels, dies at 75

RICE LEACH, M.D. (Lexington Herald-Leader photo)

Lexington Health Commissioner Rice Leach, a national, state and local leader in public health, died Friday of lymphoma. He was nine days short of his 76th birthday.

Lexington Mayor Jim Gray called Leach "a great man in every way: compassionate, committed, determined."

Leach had been Lexington’s health commissioner for five years, leading it to national accreditation, and medical director and executive director of the local health department’s primary-care center for six years before that. He was Kentucky commissioner of public health from 1992 to 2004, and before that chief of staff to the U.S. surgeon general. He spent 26 years with the U.S. Public Health Service, mostly with the Indian Health Service, but also worked in Bolivia, Panama and Guatemala.

Leach's outspoken nature endeared him to public-health officials who were not as disposed to strong public statements. His last campaign was for the establishment of needle exchanges to prevent the spread of hepatitis C and HIV through needle sharing by users of heroin and abusers of prescription drugs. Citing research, he stoutly rebuked elected officials who said the exchanges promote drug abuse.

"He was intrepid in another explosive landscape, the one where science and politics intersect," recalled Jamie Lucke of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "I was reminded of this by a recent report about states where propagandistic misinformation riddles the state-ordered briefing that women receive before an abortion. Kentucky is not one of them. I hesitate to publicize this because some politician will rush to change it. But our “informed consent” briefing is dispassionate, nonjudgmental and, above all, informative — much like Leach, who oversaw its drafting after the legislature enacted the mandate in 1998."

Lucke added, "As admirable as all of that is, none of it accounts for why the people who worked for and with him loved him so very much. That would be his kindness and unfailing sense of fun. . . Nowadays you hear that doctors are demoralized by the business demands of their profession. Perhaps Leach’s fascinating life and and profound legacy will serve as a beacon guiding them back to public health — it might be less lucrative but potentially more fun and rewarding."

Leach's last recognition was the 'hero" award from the Lexington-Fayette County Board of Health, which renamed it the Dr. Rice C. Leach Public Health Hero Award. The award is usually given during National Public Health Awareness Week, which this year is April 4-10, but was presented in March because of his medical condition.

Leach is survived by his wife of 50 years, Mireille, whom he met in Guatemala; two sons, George, of Louisville, and John, of Frankfort; two grandchildren, Nicolas Cowan Whitcomb and Alyse Marie Whitcomb; and a brother, George Brown Leach, Jr. He was preceded in death by a daughter, Mary, who died of cancer in 2007.

His Mass of Christian Burial will take place in the Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Frankfort at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 5, with visitation beginning at 10:30 a.m., Rogers Funeral Home in charge. In lieu of flowers, contributions are suggested to the church, 72 Shepherd Way, Frankfort KY 40601.

Dudley Conner, longtime leader in public health in Kentucky, dies

Dudley J. Conner of Frankfort, former executive director of the Kentucky Public Health Association and the Kentucky Health Department Association, died May 3 in Louisville at the age of 77. He was a tireless advocate for public health in Kentucky.

Conner was a 1954 graduate of Clinton County High School and Berea College. He received a master's degree in 1961 from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and later a Master's in Public Administration from Eastern Kentucky University. He spent his career and much of his retirement working in public health, and was a past president of the Southern Public Health Association.

He is survived by his wife, Betty Williams Conner, formerly of Clarkson; a daughter, Tonya Rager of Lexington; a son, Timothy Conner of Jacksonville, Fla.; two granddaughters, three grandsons, and several cousins in Clinton and Russell counties.

Visitation will be Tuesday, May 6, from 5 to 8 p.m. at Harrod Brothers Funeral Home, 312 Washington St., Frankfort, and Wednesday, May 7, from 1 to 2 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 211 Washington St., with services immediately following. Interment will be in the Frankfort Cemetery.

Pallbearers will be Irving Bell, Edward Burke, Collin Conner, Dylan Conner, Charles Geveden and Bruce Lane. Honorary pallbearers are Richard Bell, Robin Caney, Robert Doris, Fred Goins, Robert Holliday, Arthur Kelly, Robert Newberry, and Leon Townshend.

In lieu of flowers, expressions of sympathy may be made to the Kentucky Public Health Association Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 4647, Frankfort KY 40604 or the First United Methodist Church Building Fund. Condolences may be shared via the online guest book at www.harrodbrothers.com.