Page 242 - South Mississippi Living - June, 2017

THEFINALSAY LEE
VOULTERS, M.D.
president of the Mississippi State
Medical Association
photo courtesy of
Mississippi State Medical Association
My experience in health care has been interna-
tional. I was born and raised in the United Kingdom, where I attended medical school at the University of London. I served as house physician and later house surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital in London. I also worked in Canada as chief resident in neurology
at the University of Western Ontario. In the United States, I completed a Fellowship in Neurology at Columbia University in New York and earned my MBA from George Mason University in Virginia before mov- ing to the Gulf Coast.
As a neurologist at Memorial Hospital in Gulfport and as president of the Mississippi State Medical Association, I see firsthand on a daily basis the front lines of the public health crisis in Mississippi and
on the Gulf Coast. Poor health is a cradle-to-grave issue for a large number of our citizens. Many factors play into this — poor prenatal care, obesity, diabetes, the physician shortage, inadequate health insurance coverage, the opioid/heroin crisis and more. For
these reasons, our state remains at the bottom of all meaningful health indicators and it’s hard to find good news out there.
There is some positive news to report, however. For one, our state immunization policies are the envy
of the nation. Mississippi’s vaccination rates are
the highest in the land and they have kept us from enduring the kinds of outbreaks that have surfaced recently in Arkansas and Texas, and at Disneyland
in California. In fact, after the Disneyland outbreak, California turned to Mississippi for leadership on revising its immunization laws.
Also, while our doctor-to-patient ratio is not where it should be, new programs are in place to attract
physicians to the state and keep them here. The establishment of the Office of Physician Workforce in 2012 is vital for the future if we are to improve public health for our children and grandchildren. I applaud state leaders for taking this step forward.
At the Mississippi State Medical Association, we
also are fervent advocates for public policy to combat our public health crisis. This past legislative session, we endorsed and worked for bills that would require backseat passengers to wear seat belts and require minors to get parental permission before using tanning beds. We also rallied hard around the state Health Department’s budget and helped reduce the number of budget reductions they had to endure.
While we have many health care related challenges ahead in Mississippi, I am confident we can make headway. The member physicians of MSMA care deeply about their fellow Mississippians. That will never change. Meantime, we can all work together toward meaningful expansion of health care for all citizens. And as individuals we can set goals and make changes to improve our own health. Working together from a variety of approaches is the only way to make sure we have the final say on health care in Mississippi.
242 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • June 2017
FOR MORE REFLECTIONS OF THE GULF COAST >> www.smliving.net