NDSU’s public health program director nominated for U.S. surgeon general

The news is spreading! Congratulations to Dr. Warne!

Published: 15 July 2013 09:17 AM

The director of NDSU’s Master of Public Healthprogram has been nominated by two Native American organizations to become the next U.S. surgeon general.

Donald Warne, associate professor and Mary J. Berg Distinguished Professor in Women’s Health, was one of four nominees the National Indian Health Board and the National Congress of American Indians presented to President Barack Obama on July 3.

A native of Kyle, S.D., Warne is a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe, which is based on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He helped establish the NDSU Master of Public Health program and his areas of expertise include public health policy, health disparities, American Indian health and family medicine.

“It’s a tremendous honor to even be mentioned as a potential nominee,” Warne said. “I’m thankful to have national organizations have the confidence in me and my abilities.” 

Surgeon General Regina Benjamin announced in mid-June plans to step down this month from serving as the nation’s leading spokesperson on matters of public health. The surgeon general serves as “America’s doctor” by providing Americans the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce the risk of illness and injury.

Appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate for a four-year term, the surgeon general also is the operational head of the 6,500-member U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

“My priorities always will be to ensure everyone has access to the public health and medical services necessary to keep our population healthy,” Warne said. “Unfortunately, many segments of the American population simply do not have access to services, and as a result suffer from significant disparities and preventable illness.”

Warne earned his medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine and a master’s in public health from Harvard School of Public Health. He serves as a senior policy consultant for American Indian Health Management and Policy, where he previously served as president and CEO. He also is a senior policy adviser for the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board.

He became interested in health care as a child. Warne’s mother was a public health nurse in the Indian Health Service and several uncles were Medicine Men in Pine Ridge, S.D. “As a result, cross-cultural medicine and working with underserved communities has been my focus for several decades,” Warne said. “I became interested in public health because my experience as a primary care physician revealed that the chronic health issues people deal with begin long before they get to the doctor or clinic.”

Warne also serves on numerous boards, including the national board of directors for the American Cancer Society and the National Advisory Council on Breast Cancer in Young Women with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

NDSU’s Master of Public Health program features the nation’s first American Indian/Alaska Native specialization. “The activities within the program and the support from the university have strengthened me, personally and professionally, and helps contribute to this nomination,” Warne said.

Other names nominated by the two organizations include Lori Arviso-Alvord, the first Navajo woman to become a surgeon; Charles Grim, the immediate past director of the Indian Health Services; and Rear Adm. Craig Vanderwagon, former U.S. assistant surgeon general.

 The National Indian Health Board is a not-for-profit charitable organization serving and advocating for all federally recognized Tribes to advance the health care service, public health and health status of American Indian and Alaska Native people. The National Congress of American Indians is the oldest and largest American Indian organization in the United States. It has fought to preserve treaty rights and sovereign status of tribal governments, while also ensuring Native people may fully participate in the political system.

“All four individuals possess the exceptional intelligence, expertise, personal gifts and national standing that qualifies each of them to provide leadership to all of our nation’s citizens,” said the nomination letter.

For more information on NDSU’s Master of Public Health program, visitwww.ndsu.edu/publichealth. More information on the National Indian Health Board is available at www.nihb.org. More information on the National Congress of American Indians is available at www.ncai.org.

This great piece of news is all over the web:

Bismarck Tribune

Grand Forks Herald

KFYR-TV

KQCD-TV

KUMV-TV

Inforum

Keloland-TV

WDAY News

The Republic

Valley News Live

And the list goes on and on...all over the country!

Second Annual Native American Diabetes & Wound Care Conference

Dr. Warne presented as a keynote speaker on this year’s conference to discuss the prevention and treatment of diabetes as well as the proper techniques for treating wounds. 

ArgusLeader.com

Please see the following article by Peter Harriman:

Better Indian health may hinge on power of tribes themselves

Head of NDSU program says Alaska network offers model for success

June 12, 2013

The average life expectancy of a Native American in South Dakota is 58.

Incidence of diabetes among tribal members is 208 percent that of non-Indians.

And the incidence of alcoholism among tribal members is 526 percent that of non-Indians.

These statistics came Tuesday courtesy of Dr. Donald Warne, director of the Master of Public Health Program at North Dakota State University. He was among the speakers at the first-ever Collaborative Research Center for American Indian Health Summit in Sioux Falls.

The conference, which drew about 350 participants Tuesday, concludes today at the Sanford Center. Its goal is to bring together tribal communities and health researchers from multiple disciplines to talk about health disparities experienced by Native Americans in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota.

In his presentation, Warne was not despairing of Indian health care. Conditions that contribute to such poor health outcomes for Indians all are preventable, he said, and a theme running through the conference is that the best solutions come from tribes themselves.

“For thousands of years, the tribes took care of their own. They survived and thrived,” said Dr. Siobhan Wescott, a Sanford Research scientist.

The health summit is a consortium of Sanford, state universities in North Dakota and South Dakota, several other health care providers, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board. Other regional tribes are expected to join in the next two years. The group was paid for by a grant from the Helmsley Charitible Trust.

If a community of clinical providers and researchers that is focused on Indian health issues emerges this week, the initial summit will have been a success, said Jen Prasek, Sanford Research project manager.

“The biggest success will be opening more conversations, more dialogue. A lot of the people in this room have never met before today,” she said.

The summit includes national speakers, panel discussions and training on topics such as community engagement in research, regulatory knowledge and research ethics.

In a summit session today, participants will take a detailed look at the Southcentral Foundation Nuka System of Care, the health care network owned and managed by Alaskan Natives. In his presentation Tuesday, Warne was clear that this is a preferred template for Indian health care everywhere — a situation where the tribes take more responsibility for their health care and essentially run the system.

The model is “the flagship” of how Native American health care should be run, Warne said.

But the model is not widely used in the Aberdeen Region of the Indian Health Service, which includes South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa. And in the Aberdeen region, the state that uses it least is South Dakota, Warne said.

Of the state’s nine tribes, only the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe operate a health care facility.

After passage of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, tribes gained the ability to subcontract with federal agencies for the delivery of services guaranteed by treaties, including health care.

The federal government seriously underfunds IHS, Warne said. Its average expenditure per person is $2,600 annually, compared to $11,000 for Medicare recipients, he said.

But by contracting with IHS as a health care provider, tribes can leverage the federal appropriation to the greatest degree.

Where federal agencies such as IHS are prohibited from carrying forward money from one fiscal year to the next, a tribe contracting with IHS is under no such restriction. Federal agencies cannot lobby for additional money, nor can they seek grants. Tribes can do both. Tribes that subcontract as health care providers also can bill Medicare and Medicaid.

In addition, Warne said, if a tribe simply allows IHS to provide its health care, it receives only the value of the direct appropriation — Warne used the example of $2 million. But if a tribe subcontracts with IHS, it not only gets the direct appropriation but recovers indirect costs. So $2 million of health care provided directly by IHS could become a $2.6 million payment from IHS to the tribe.

Indians taking charge of their affairs are shaping other aspects of health care. Joseph Gone, a University of Michigan psychology professor, discussed in a summit presentation the interface of evidence-based medical mental health treatment and traditional tribal healing.

“Creative hybridity,” he called treatment approaches that borrow from both modes.

By overseeing genetic and other medical research involving Indians, “we want to make research mean something for us. We have not been getting anything back,” Cecelia Big Crow said

She was instrumental in establishing the Oglala Sioux Research Review Board. Founded on the principle of tribal sovereignty, it works in parallel with institutional review boards that traditionally have sought to make research in various disciplines adhere to ethics.

“We are asserting co-ownership over data collected on our tribe,” she said.

Please see pictures from this year's 

Dakota Conference on Rural and Public Health.

Mission

• Provide quality education for rural and public health professionals.

Vision

• Improve the health and well-being of North Dakota Communities.

Objectives

1. Provide continuing education to health and human service administrators, managers, researchers, and clinical providers in the areas of:
   • Health care administration,
   • Health promotion and disease prevention,
   • Environmental health and occupational health, and
   • Diverse populations and health disparities.
2. Create an environment of learning that is informative and educational to an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary audience of health and human service professionals.
3. Provide conference participants with the opportunity to formally present community-based solutions to common rural and public health issues.
4. Provide conference participants with the opportunity to informally network with others to share skills and strategies meant to address access, financial, and quality-of-care issues found in rural and public health.
5. Foster an environment that is conducive to collaboration between different organizations, health and human service disciplines, and communities.

The Nation's Health

In this month's edition of the APHA's publication, The Nation's Health, NDSU MPH was highlighted for the work done during National Public Health week.
 Here's what is says:

"Fargo Cass Public Health in Fargo, N.D., worked during National Public Health Week to show how the department makes a difference throughout the community. On April 3 at the West Acres Mall, the agency conducted free blood pressure checks, gave away refrigerator thermometers and distributed information on emergency preparedness, pool safety and health promotion. Staff and nurses also oversaw volunteers who made sandbags for flood preparation. Meanwhile, local media attended nurse family partnership appointments to learn how the program helps families who are expecting their first children. Health promotions staff and nutrition students from North Dakota State University gave nutrition presentations to local fourth- and fifth-graders, who had the opportunity to have their pictures taken while sporting milk mustaches.

During National Public Health Week at North Dakota State University in Fargo, N.D., faculty in the master of public health program provided insight about their current research and gave ideas for future research collaborations. Also, North Dakota State Health Officer Terry Dwelle, MD, MPH, an APHA member, spoke about integrating public health and primary care and how those with an MPH degree can help lead the way. The week’s events also featured a panel discussion on school wellness policies and local foods."

You'll find us about 2/3 of the way down the page.

NDSU Faculty Award Photos

Dr. Warne with Dean Peterson

Within the Winners

Dr. Warne with Robert Sylester

Tapestry of Diverse Talents

Tapestry Overview

The Tapestry of Diverse Talents, a program of the Memorial Union, is a pictorial mosaic that recognizes students, faculty, staff and alumni for the diversity and contributions they bring to North Dakota State University. Each semester individuals are inducted into the Tapestry. Inductees reflect the ages, classes, abilities, ethnicities, genders, races, regional differences, sexual orientations, beliefs and values of the University community. The Tapestry program kindles the spirit to diversify diversity.

This semester the induction ceremony into the Tapestry of Diverse Talents will be held at noon on Friday, May 3, 2013 in the Memorial Union Century Theater. Please join us for the induction ceremony as we honor these individuals and begin a new Tapestry. Reception follows in the Butte Lounge, adjacent to the Century Theater.

Please see pictures from Dr. Warne's induction this year: