Good morning everyone, can you hear me?
My name is Barbara Sucher and I am the Associate Dean of Continuing Medical
Education here at the Quillen College of Medicine.
On behalf of East Tennessee State University and the College of Medicine, I
want to thank everyone who has joined us today
for an exciting announcement about the establishment
of telemedicine services
and teleconferencing education
for towns in Tennessee,
Virginia,
and Kentucky.
We're especially appreciative of our friends from the United States
Department of Agriculture
and the community partners who have come in today
as well as representatives from the offices of Senator Alexander, Senator
Corker, and Congressman Phil Roe.
I plan to speak only briefly before I invite Mister Bobby Goode, the State
Director for the USDA Rural Development, to explain why we're here
today
and the USDA's involvement.
Later,
I'll invite Doctor Brian Noland, the new President of our University,
Dr. Wilsie Bishop, our Chief Operating Officer and Vice President for
Health Affairs,
and Doctor Phillip Bagnell, the Dean of the College of Medicine
to share their thoughts.
If I may, I'd like to direct your attention to the sculpture behind me.
Many of you have seen it,
some pass by it each day.
It captures an image that I think has some bearing
on this morning's announcement.
Those hands you see illustrate a sacred trust,
a sacred trust between faculty and the medical student,
and ultimately between physician and patients.
Likewise, there is a sacred trust between ETSU and the community.
The people in this region trust us to serve their educational needs
and through the Quillen College of Medicine and the Academic Health Science
Center at ETSU,
they trust us to improve their health care.
We regard it as our duty to earn that trust
each and every day.
This telemedicine project will deliver needed specialty and subspecialty
services
by Quillen physicians to rural towns in our region.
A videoconferencing hub here at ETSU
connected to mobile
video conferencing equipment
in the medical centers and the clinics with treating in the towns that
we serve will enable our doctors to consult
with treating physicians and providers remotely
and to offer treatment recommendations and management strategies.
In addition, we'll be working with our partners
to identify the appropriate educational support for the clinicians and health
care providers in those communities
through our continuing medical education programs.
While our partner communities may be small in size,
the health care needs of their citizens
are not.
We commend the USDA for recognizing the unmet needs of our rural communities
and stepping forward with grant funding to address it.
Please join me in welcoming Bobby Goode,
the State Director for USDA
Rural Development.
(applause)
Get a few medical students in here and
the volume goes way up.
test test
Better? Test
Well, my volumes usually way up anyway...
Well, we're just here today to celebrate with you,
and celebrate with the three state area.
Opportunities that we have
to provide
this... we call it distance learning telemedicine. It's our DLT program.
Distance learning has been used throughout the First District here
for many years throughout the hospitals, either to join the hospitals
together, or to join higher education with those hospitals for dual credit so
that those students have opportunity
to learn.
But today we're here to celebrate the telemedicine aspect of that program
because
it allows opportunities for the university but it also allows
opportunity for the rural people in the three state area,
and so I'm just here to celebrate with you. I'm proud to be here and be a part of
this grant presentation.
But with us today, we have the Area Director, Mr. Joe Woody, who's Area
Director in Knoxville and Greeneville, for our office,
and Mr. Louis Trivette, from the Greeneville area office and they're the ones that have
actually done the work on this project. I just get to come help you celebrate so...
but... our partners... our federal partners are here,
and we have Lana Moore from Senator Alexander's Office, Bridget Baird from
Senator Corker's Office, and one of our...
truly
fun partners is Congressman
Roe because he and I, really enjoy each other's company and I hate
that he's not able to be with us today
but we have his representative John Abe Teague with us
and John Abe's going to come up and just say
a few remarks.
Dean Sucher I told you I wouldn't embarass you, I'll try not to,
but I do want to thank you and Dr. Bagnell for all the
support that you've given this institution and what you do bring to northeast
Tennessee through
the Quillen College of Medicine and I wanted to welcome
Dr. Brian Noland to our area. We're glad to have you here in East Tennessee and
Wilsie, thank you for what you do, and I want to say thanks to the USDA
Department of Rural Development because
we are building a real good relationship
with them and I know that they do everything they possibly can to reach
out and help our community.
Three years ago, I guess it's about that time, I had an opportunity to go
down to Cocke County
with the Niswonger Foundation and actually see this distance learning
program in action when they
had students that
lived in that very rural county
talking to a diver that was off the Great Barrier Reef and it was
just in real-time so
you know this is another
piece of that where you can do medicine in real time and
I know one of the things that the Congressman has been so... interested
in is the communication between the Veterans Affairs
and the Department of Defense so
he's been to Afghanistan twice to try to understand
from the point of injury to getting them into the VA system back
here at home in seventy two hours
and I hope that maybe this opportunity will help
that line of communication, maybe help begin to
penetrate that wall where they are having a problem communicating with each other
through the VA and the Department of Defense. Bobby, thank you very much and
Joe thank you for what you do and
all others, thank you very much. (applause)
We have one other county mayor,
Mr. Larry Potter here with us from Johnson County and his county will actually
reap the benefits of some of this.
But... the President is known for saying we help to out educate, out
innovate, and
out build the rest of the world,
and this covers two of those because it's out educating and it's out innovating the
rest of the world, and so with that congratulations and thank you for
participating in our program.
Thank you Mr. Goode.
I just want to recognize, too, one of our telemedicine partners Lindy
White who's the CEO of Smith County
Hospital. We're glad to have you here. Are there any other
partners?
No, I think that was it, but I appreciate you coming
right there... OK...
my favorite thing...
It's my pleasure now to welcome
the new President of ETSU whom I've just gotten to meet, Dr. Brian
Noland... Doctor Noland... (applause)
Dr. Sucher, thank you and good morning It is my pleasure to be with you
today as we celebrate
what is another foundational element in our long standing commitment to the
rural health needs of the region.
I want to thank our partners at the federal level, at the local level...
I also want to thank the Dean and Dr. Bishop.
But, I think it's fitting that I stand in front of
the statute that says mentor...
because I also want to take a moment to thank Dr. Paul Stanton
who is a true mentor and friend...
whose commitment and dedication
to rural health is evidenced in everything that we do here at
East Tennessee State University.
When our med school was created more than thirty eight years ago we made a
pledge to the region that we would improve health care delivery across
our rural communities.
Since that time, through the Kellogg program and others we have revolutionized health
care in Johnson County, Hawkins County, and in counties across the region.
Through the tireless efforts and dedication of our faculty and staff we
have transformed the lives of many, not only in East Tennessee, but in Kentucky
and in Virginia,
and that's what this grant does today.
It provides opportunities to revolutionize care,
to realize efficiencies, and to provide better service to the individuals who
comprise our area. This isn't just something that benefits the great state
of Tennessee. It touches Harlan County, Kentucky, and our partners to the north
in Virginia.
But through telemedicine, through technology,
we can take the skills, resources, and ability of our faculty and staff and
bring them to bear on those who need our help the most.
Once again, I want to congratulate Dr. Sucher, Dr. Bagnell, Dr. Bishop,
and others who have worked to make this exciting project a reality. I want to thank our
partners at the USDA for their faith in the Quillen College of Medicine,
and I certainly look forward to watching this grow in the months and years to come.
Thank you! (applause)
Dr. Wilsie Bishop is ETSU's Chief Operating Officer and in her role
as Vice President for Health Affairs will explain how telemedicine fits into
the service mission of the Academic Health
Sciences Center.
Thank you Barbara.
I, too, am delighted to be here. It's always nice to be at an occasion when
somebody brings you a check, isn't it? (laughter)
This is an exciting time for us because it is an opportunity for us to
take another serious step toward reaching out to our partner communities.
ETSU is all about partnerships and
as we walked into this building today I pointed out to Dr. Noland that this
building is an example of that partnership.
It was built with part Federal dollars and part State dollars and so it
is a real visible
example of what we do as an Academic Health Sciences Centre,
is that we work with our communities to deliver health and education
and important services.
This is also a partnership project, too, because not only are our faculty
from the College of Medicine involved,
but our faculty and nurse practitioners and our nurse managed clinics are also
involved in this outreach.
And so, again, an example of what we do as an Academic Health Sciences Centre.
In fact, I think there are few
Centers in the country that are as involved in interprofessional education
and in rural outreach as we
have here at East Tennessee State.
And there are few Academic Health Centers in the country
that have the kind of programming mix that we do, that allows us to
bring together not only the Allied Health resources... but also
Public Health,
Nursing, and Medicine, and Pharmacy. So we're growing, we're serving our area,
and with partners like the USDA,
and our other federal partners, we really do appreciate the work
that's been done. Thank you for what you've done to advance this and thank you all
for being here today.
Congratulations! (applause)
Thank you, Dr. Bishop! Next,
we'd like to hear from Dr. Bagnell.
He's the Dean of Medicine and the physician who leads us in this
mission to better serve the community each and every day.
Thank you Barbara, and thank you everyone for being here this morning.
I'm going to start with the statue behind me.
This, for those who are...
who visit us, or who haven't visited us before,
this was...
done by one of our local artists,
Danny Green,
who unfortunately is leaving, or moving a little bit away from our area
and he's leaving our area because of the College of Medicine.
His wife
became
a student in our rural program
roughly
eight years ago... six, seven years ago
and... finished her... graduated from our Medical School,
started her surgery residency program
and the two of them are leaving this summer to
establish a surgical practice and move
his artistry a little closer to Knoxville, but not that far away
and it's... it's actually a reminder to me
of the strength of this school. We're a small school.
We have a very strong
culture.
We serve a
rural region.
We understand our mission
and this grant
will play a significant role over time
in our mission.
It's
difficult... I was saying earlier,
we've had an interest in getting telemedicine started.
It's difficult...
for any of us to find resources to
justify new expenses
and
this gives us a start, a very good start in very capable hands.
And so thank you very much, it is much appreciated and we will...
I think you will be pleased
to learn in three or four years time... how this has been
converted
into
a grant that really does serve the educational and health care needs in this
region. So thank you very much and thank you everybody for being here this morning.
(applause)
Thank you Dr. Bagnell. After we wrap up in a moment, I invite everyone to
stay for some light refreshments in the back.
I guess in summary, what we want to say is as we begin this project with our
partners, I want to restate the vision that we have, which is working with them
to improve health... the health care of their communities, by delivering new
medical services to patients in a new way, as well as the education, the
educational component is just as important to support that continued
success in these endeavors.
We're grateful to the USDA
for helping us bring this concept to fruition.
So, if you'd like to present the cheque, Dr. Noland, Dr. Bishop, and Dr. Bagnell
would be pleased to receive it.
Thank you, and I would like our federal partners to come up here also, please and our staff.
(cameras clicking)