Spring 2021
Greetings MSHP Community,

We hope this message finds you all well and safe.

Spring semester kicked off in late January, once again in a virtual format (see HPR 607-- Methods II picture, above). Our second-years are planning for their next steps and polishing up their thesis projects. First-years have started the secondary data-oriented sequence of the MSHP curriculum-- Methods II and Statistics II. Our students are continuing to contribute to health services research. We look forward to a return to warm weather and socially-distanced gatherings as we continue to navigate our program in the COVID era.
Dismantling Racism through Research
Our national reckoning with systemic racism is continuing in 2021 and we are proud of the MSHP students, alumni, and faculty who are leading the charge. The MSHP community was well represented among LDI Small Grant recipients whose projects seek to examine and dismantle racist power structures in health care. This year, LDI partnered with Bold Solutions in its call for proposal. Brief descriptions of select funded projects are below.

Morine Cebert Gaitors, PhD is partnering with faculty mentors Marilyn Schapira, MD, MPH and Lisa Lewis, PhD to use chart-stimulated recall to identify cultural, societal, and knowledge-based barriers and facilitators to managing Black women presenting with fertility concerns in primary care.

Current second-year Jeffrey Eugene, MD is working with alumnus George Dalembert, MD, MSHP to address the disproportionate likelihood of Black men being fatally shot by police. Their study looks at key messages from youth and their caregivers about safely navigating police encounters and the acceptability of this being a topic of discussion in primary care practice.

First-year Courtney Lee, MD paired up with alumnus Gary Weissman, MD, MSHP and Judith Long, MD to assess race-based linguistic differences in physician notes of high-use patients using automated text mining. High-use patients often face stigmatizing illnesses and present clinical uncertainty for clinicians, making them more susceptible to bias.

First-year Jason Tong, MD is working with a team including alumna Raina Merchant, MD, MSHP using novel digital data. This study will identify topics of racism and anti-racism within US hospitals using nationwide Yelp consumer reviews and Latent Dirichlet Allocation. It will also perform Qualitative Comparative Analysis to determine factors contributing to the relationship between the US News & World Report hospital rankings, and themes of racism and anti-racism.

Alumnus Sam Takvorian, MD, MSHP is examining the association between state Medicaid policies and racial and ethnic disparities in cancer care trial enrollment.

Penn's Office of Social Equity and Community has announced the launch of Penn Projects for Progress, a fund and initiative established by President Gutmann. This fund supports proposals designed to promote inclusion by focusing on eradicating or reducing systemic racism, achieving educational equity, reducing health disparities based on races, gender and/or social determinants of health. Have a great idea? Learn more and apply here (deadline is March 1, 2021).
Take a Class with MSHP this Summer!
MSHP is offering a number of exciting electives this summer that we encourage you to explore.

  • Grant Writing and Review (HPR 714) with Marilyn Schapira, MD, MPH
  • Pragmatic Clinical Trials (HPR 625) with Katherine Courtright,MD, MSHP
  • Applied Predictive Modeling (HPR 660) with Gary Weissman, MD, MSHP
  • Qualitative Methods in Health Care (HPR 503) with Judy Shea, PhD
  • Leadership and Business Acumen in Health Care (HPR 670) with David Grande, MD, MPA
  • Advanced Topics in Implementation Science (HPR 612) with Meghan Lane-Fall, MD, MSHP and Rinad Beidas, PhD

Learn more about all of our classes here. Interested in registering? Contact mshp@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.
Students and Alumni in the News
Second-years Dan Resnick (pictured left) and Jeffrey Eugene, MD paired up to pen a Philadelphia Inquirer piece to address the issue of confidentiality for young patients. "...[P]rivacy concerns can lead to gaps in care, not only in the area of sexual health, but also in treating mental illness and substance abuse. We need to strengthen state and federal legislation to help young adults access the care they deserve."

Ravi Gupta, MD, first-year MSHP student, called for radical restructuring of vaccine infrastructure in an editorial for the Boston Review. "A pandemic exacerbates chronic, vexing problems, but it also sharpens our understanding of them. Crises offer rare opportunities to fundamentally change the paradigm of producing and delivering life-saving vaccines to everyone". Ravi also published an editorial in the New York Times, speculating on the effectiveness of Remdesivir in treatment of COVID-19. Read more here.
Select Current Student Research
First-year Michelle-Marie Peña, MD (pictured left) was senior author on a paper providing 8 foundational concepts and recommendations for how to apply Equity-Focused QI concepts to practice. Read more in Seminars in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine.

Second-year Utsha Khatri, MD, and team wrote about racial and ethnic disparities in unintentional fatal and nonfatal emergency medical services during the COVID-19 pandemic: “Philadelphia has been devastated by the opioid crisis, which was experienced previously more acutely in the white community... Recently, however, we tracked a disturbing trend toward higher rates of fatal and non-fatal overdoses among Black Philadelphia residents. These differential trends in opioid overdose suggest that racial inequities were exacerbated by the pandemic.” Read more in PennToday and JAMA Network Open.
Highlighting Achievements of Black Alumni
For Black History Month, we would like to highlight several of our Black alumni, bringing their achievements in science and advocacy to light. We are grateful for our Black students' many contributions to the program and the health services research community writ large.

Brandi Freeman, MD, MSHP (Class of 2014), Associate Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Children's Hospital of Colorado and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine was recently named to the Colorado 40 Under 40 list. Her research while in MSHP centered around understanding challenges in the health professional pipeline.

Brownsyne Tucker-Edmonds, MD, MSHP (Class of 2011) was appointed Assistant Dean of Diversity Afffairs at Indiana University. She is nationally and internationally recognized for her research and advocacy in disparities, shared decision-making, and periviable care.

Tiffany Montgomery, PhD, PhD, RNC-OB, C-EFM, MSHP (Class of 2019), pictured right, was in the first class of MSHP Nursing Graduates and is currently completing a post-doctoral fellowship at Drexel University. She recently wrote a piece for The Philadelphia Inquirer on the need to increase diversity among Nursing School faculty. While at MSHP, she studied dual-method contraception use among young women pre- and post-ACA implementation.

Edouard Coupet Jr, MD, MSHP (Class of 2018), is a NIDA-sponsored Drug Use, Addiction, and HIV Scholar (DARHS) and Assistant Professor in Emergency Medicine at Yale University. His research focuses on the intersection between substance use and community violence and disparities in access to addiction treatment. During his time in MSHP, he studied the effect of young adult insurance expansion on opioid overdoses.

We wish you all health and peace in 2021.

Warmly,