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From the Front Row: Discussing public health policy and partnerships with Phyllis Meadows

Published on April 30, 2021

This week Steve talks with Dr. Phyllis Meadows of the Kresge Foundation. They discuss public health policy and partnerships with private organizations to leverage resources in order to meet public health needs and improve health equity.

Steve Sonnier:

Hello everyone, welcome back to From the Front Row brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. My name is Steveland Sonnier, and if this is your first time with us, welcome. We’re a student run podcast that talks about major issues in public health and how they’re relevant to anyone both in and out of the field of public health.

Steve Sonnier:

Today we’re delighted to talk with Phyllis Meadows, who is a senior fellow at the Kresge Foundation’s Health Program. As a senior fellow in the health program, Dr. Meadows engages in all levels of grant-making activity. Since joining the Kresge Foundation in 2009, she’s advised the health team on the development of its overall strategic direction and provided leadership in the design and implementation of grant-making initiatives and projects.

Steve Sonnier:

Dr. Meadows has led the foundation’s emerging leaders and public health program, advises and supports the development of cross-team programming efforts with the Detroit environment and human services programs. Dr. Meadows’ 30-year career spans the nursing, public health, academic, and philanthropic sectors. Welcome to the show, Dr. Meadows.

Phyllis Meadows:

Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Steve Sonnier:

So just to first touch on this, we’re seeing this huge realm of experience that you’ve got, so many different exciting areas. How did you get into the field of public health? How did you end up in your current role? Talk us through that process, as it were.

Phyllis Meadows:

Wow, that’s a long story but I can tell you, I would love to start with a funny story because my background, I’m a nurse, and I ended up getting interviewed by the newspaper when I graduated from high school, and they asked me what kind of nurse did I want to be. And I said, I wanted to be a community health nurse. And interestingly, I didn’t know what that was. I made up that title in my head and it came to be once I studied nursing. One of the tracks in which you study in is public health and community health, and I literally fell in love with it.

Phyllis Meadows:

And so my master’s degree is in community health nursing, which includes public health, and my PhD is in applied sociology, which is really taking the research and trying to put it into practice. And I just ended up in public health by accident. I started off just like every nurse in the hospital, I ended up in community health nursing as a visiting nurse, went on to do other community health efforts. I worked in oncology, so home-based oncology care where we were administering chemotherapy to cancer patients in the home, and I just loved being out there in the field in the spaces where people were. And so my career just kept unfolding in that way where I get these opportunities.

Phyllis Meadows:

So I went actually from working with cancer patients in their homes, to infant mortality reduction, would be huge leap from as you can conceptually see. And I hadn’t worked in that space but I love children and I loved working with moms and babies when I was a visiting nurse. And the city of Detroit had, at that time, one of the largest infant mortality rates in the country, I think they were second at that time to Washington, DC. The number of Black infants were dying three or four times the rate of other nationalities and races and so something had to be done.

Phyllis Meadows:

And I saw this ad in the paper, back then they used to have a local newspaper where they would post jobs, and I actually saw this position, it was very far afield from oncology, and just thought I’d put my name in the hat once to get my chops up and just get out there and just see what it would be like to interview because I hadn’t interviewed for those previous roles, and I got the job. I drove my resume in, which then you drove things you didn’t just send them over the internet, I drove my resume in and I was 10 minutes before the deadline which was at five o’clock, and I got called for an interview and by amazing grace, I got the job.

Phyllis Meadows:

And that’s when I fell in love with public health because I had a joint appointment between the Detroit Health Department and the Wayne County Health Department. So I was reporting to two bosses to address infant mortality and I just fell in love with working with communities, working with community organizations, working with the clients, understanding their issues, just really trying to build a portfolio practice that could reduce that infant mortality rate and we did it. We did it. For the first time in 30 years we were able to work collaboratively with organizations, people working across sectors to reduce infant mortality, and we did it. So that’s how I fell in love with public health.

Steve Sonnier:

That’s fantastic. And I’m wondering, what did that look like? Because you talked about, right, being the number two in the nation with Detroit and everything along those lines, what do you think was substantive about your ability to combat infant mortality? What did that look like as a process as a whole? That sounds really fascinating to be a part of.

Phyllis Meadows:

Well, it was a lot of strain for the politicians as well as health officials to have that designation, because if you think about infant mortality, it has traditionally been known as a way to measure the health of a community. If infants are dying and dying prematurely, that means your community is not healthy, the future of the community is at risk. So that was a major pressure point for the politicians as well as other health officials.

Phyllis Meadows:

The process was quite dynamic. I, in all fairness, inherited a small number of agencies, around 20 agencies who were connecting the health systems, some grassroots organizations, were coming together around this topic. Certainly, local health department, the Wayne County Health Department, Detroit Health Department were at the table. And when I took on that role, the process was really about being very clear what the issues were for women, where were the points that made this a problem.

Phyllis Meadows:

And one of the big areas at that time was that the State of Michigan has such a litigious environment where many OB-GYNs just didn’t want to practice here, the malpractice issues was extremely high. And one of the factors that was contributing to that was that women were coming into care so late. So the later you come into care, if you can come in during your first trimester of a pregnancy, you’re at lower risk than if you come in, in second and third. And women who had, had babies all pretty much felt like well, I’ve had a baby, I don’t need to, I’ve got three kids.

Phyllis Meadows:

And so just that lack of awareness that you got to be [inaudible 00:07:50] harder for you to find a provider in your second trimester than it would be in your first. So we had to work this from every angle, from policy work, how can we support those providers who were saying, we don’t want to work in Michigan? To getting women in early for care, so that they weren’t in a high risk environment. And then working with a group of partners to make sure that those partners could play a role in supporting women who needed to get into care, because sometimes the reason why I don’t go into care is, I got other things to worry about, like food, or shelter, or I got a domestic abusive partner.

Phyllis Meadows:

So building out that collaboration to include, not just only health services, because if you really think about infant mortality, the clinical part of it is finding out you’re pregnant, monitoring you to make sure the baby is growing, not a lot of intervention there, and then delivering that baby. And so we needed to figure out, how do we make sure that stream of activity happened, and what partners do we need to make that happen? And that’s what I did is just started unpacking that problem and then connecting with agencies who could fulfill and support some of those things that happen while I’m pregnant, okay, things that might keep me from going in for care, and then I had the responsibility of designing programs that fill the gap, and one was transportation.

Phyllis Meadows:

At one time, Detroit had a really phenomenal bus system, but that declined. So women trying to get into care was also an issue and I designed one of the nation’s first transportation programs exclusively for pregnant women. And I’ll be honest, to give full credit, a student actually designed a program. A graduate student from the University of Michigan, so that’s why I love graduate students because they’re so brilliant, and I brought life to that program. It was when I got it, no one knew what to do with it, it was going to be funded by a major funder, and it was like oops, this is a great idea, now we got to bring it to life. So it was a lot of different activities and trying to pull them together to create the perfect storm of support for those women, and that’s what I think we did.

Steve Sonnier:

That’s really exciting to hear about. I know that one of the continual problems that we’re facing in Iowa here is maternal mortality, so not exactly infant mortality, but very similarly related. Did your experiences ever cross over into that? Because I know you’ve mentioned the bit about transporting pregnant women, the idea of, yes, I’ve had multiple kids, yes, I know how this goes, I’ve done this before. But each kiddo is different, that’s just the difficulty with it.

Phyllis Meadows:

Yes.

Steve Sonnier:

What was your experience, if you had any, in that area?

Phyllis Meadows:

Well, interestingly enough, at that time, maternal mortality was relatively low. Our biggest issue at that time was maternal substance abuse. So we had a little heroin thing going on, crack cocaine thing going on in the city. So really trying to help women have a healthy baby was the priority, we just didn’t have a lot of mothers dying, we had a lot of premature deliveries, which was contributing to the high infant mortality rate. But as you said, you said in Iowa, we’re seeing an increase in that in Detroit now and across the country. So I didn’t have a lot of experience with it but I actually I’m now putting on the radar has gone up because something is going wrong here if we have women who are dying in childbirth, that signals something is wrong and we have to unpack that to try to understand what’s going on.

Steve Sonnier:

When you’re unpacking those problems, how do you think that the nursing model experience really contributes to that? You’ve got the public health side of things where you’re getting that wide picture of how these different systems interact, but from a clinical perspective, for those folks who are in the clinical field, how do you think that helped influence your experiences and understanding public health better?

Phyllis Meadows:

Well, I do think that there is some value to the clinical because there’s one thing to tell you about the vaccine, for example, COVID vaccine, there’s another thing where I think the clinical allows you is to understand how that impacts the body and how do you support the whole person beyond the knowledge. Public health is very good in ensuring that we have good knowledge, good research, but trying to care for individuals is a whole different thing.

Phyllis Meadows:

So I just got a call from a colleague who said, I should say Zoom, not a call from a colleague, who talked about her first vaccine. Now this is a professional in public health who understood, based on her age group and her underlying condition, that she needed to get the vaccine. After she got that first dose she was under, I mean, it took her down. And that’s where I think the clinical comes in, is that ability to not only understand the knowledge around a vaccine and how it works, but understand how to care for the person is where I think the clinical comes in.

Phyllis Meadows:

It’s one thing in the maternal mortality space to know that women are dying and we can pull out the research and understand some of the topical reasons why, but the clinical allows you to get more into the physical care of that individual. That goes a little bit deeper than just, it’s not only what we know, it’s what we do, and how we relate, and how we eat, how we rest, those kinds of variables and assessing those and being able to assess those at a different level than I think you can do without … we need public health clearly, but I think nursing adds a different dimension to understand what’s going on with any of the issues that we see.

Steve Sonnier:

I think, yes, it’s definitely one thing to create the intervention, and then it’s another thing to put it into practice, right, and actually be the person either administering the vaccine, for example, or helping coach a mom through the delivery of a baby and the subsequent stuff. You need that additional boots on the ground experience a little bit or at least seeing it, even if you’re a public health student, at least seeing what this looks like seems critical, right?

Phyllis Meadows:

Right. It’s a natural partnership. And if you look historically, nurses actually, God bless Florence Nightingale, invented public health nurse. They invented public health practice, quite honestly, it emerged from that. We don’t get a lot of credit for it but Florence Nightingale went home to home, door to door, in caring for people and not only caring for the person, but caring for their environment, caring for their relatives in relationship to that person and that’s how nurses are taught. So I think it’s a natural partnership when you have the strength of public health, which brings the science, and the thinking, and the right questions, and positions them in a way and creates ways in which we can get the information that we need in a palatable way, and then partnering that with clinicians really makes for a good ecosystem of well being if we can use it right.

Steve Sonnier:

And I think the using it right thing is very critical. Now we’re seeing a lot of concern about public health interventions being pitted against the economy, right. The idea of, I want to be able to safeguard folks, but at the same time there are people saying, “I got to make sure my business stays afloat otherwise, what am I going to do?” And we know that policy and governance is really critical in mitigating the spread of COVID-19, for example, but we’ll have future pandemics as well where we’ll have this same question come up.

Phyllis Meadows:

Yes.

Steve Sonnier:

I’m thinking, now, how can we really balance these evidence based policymaking decisions that we’d like to have happen, and then you’ve got this other court of there’s the economic concerns of constituents which are very real, rational things that also influence health as a whole?

Phyllis Meadows:

Well it’s a great question. And there’s a clear reality now, if never before, how inextricably linked health is to the economy. And so, never before, than now, it’s clear that we have to be thinking differently and that these two are not in silos, especially as we anticipate future pandemics or epidemics, which will come, they will come. What has been comforting though is the amount of flexibility and creativity that people have been able to put into play to try to balance the two.

Phyllis Meadows:

Now if I had to say as a public health professional where I think we we didn’t do well, is they can’t be balanced all the time at the same level. So in the early months, had we really doubled down and just really put our nose to the grind and just to be salt of the earth in our approach for just a little bit longer, then we could have allowed for the economy to move back faster and with a little bit more fervor, but we wanted to do both, and sometimes both cannot work, you may have to balance one over the other for a period of time. And I think what we did is we tried to juggle both.

Phyllis Meadows:

We wanted to have the security and reduce the transmissibility of a very virulent virus, and we wanted money. We wanted our businesses to thrive, which both are important, but they cannot, it’s like a marriage, if you’re that strongly linked, there are times when one spouse has to lift the load for a time for whatever reason, it could be health, it could be financial, whatever. And you have to strike that misbalance for a time until you can come back into some balance, and I don’t think we did that.

Phyllis Meadows:

And that’s so germane to public health is this adaptability, and really, that’s the whole heart of sciences, the cells, is that we adapt. And so I just think the new way of thinking has to be more of an adaptable model that seeks to find the ways in which we weight one behavior or one activity over the other to get to the results we want.

Phyllis Meadows:

We were using not getting sick as a result and keeping money coming in as a result, and the result is not necessarily either or, it’s both in a different way. So I just think we’ve got to come out of our traditional ways of thinking. And this has said this to us, this pandemic has said that to us more than anything I’ve ever seen, and know that business and health are linked. I know there have been a lot of discussions of, why do we need to partner with business? Well, if nothing else, now we see why, and we do need to partner.

Steve Sonnier:

I think those partnerships you talked about are very critical. And one way that I’ve seen brought up is the idea of community health workers, right, and having folks within the community, who represent the community, who can communicate these big picture public health concepts, or our business leaders, or our faith leaders, or other folks like that, because they have such a big sway over folks in their neighborhoods, right. They have the ability to say, we need to be looking out for what’s going on with COVID-19, we need to be looking out for our businesses as well, here are some ways we can do this and using them as voices for especially underserved folks, seems to be a critical way. And I’m wondering, why didn’t this happen as much, at the community health worker side of things or recruiting people from communities to help this? Do you think it was more of a federal misguided situation or is it on the local communities? Did they have not enough resources to help each other out? What could be improved next time something like this comes around?

Phyllis Meadows:

Well, I could say one thing, that’s a really tough question. But one thing is, if we have another pandemic, we all pray that it doesn’t happen around election time, because quite honestly, I think people knew that what you were saying that we should have some trusted voices and they should have been active, and I believe many of them were, the resources that were there were doing those things, but this took on a political umbrella. And I wonder, I’ve been reflecting on it a lot, that if we hadn’t politicized it so much, would things have shifted better?

Phyllis Meadows:

And while I’m saying this, there was a lot of politicization of what happened around this pandemic, that alone, the ideology, can shift the way people hear and how they respond to what they hear. And so I don’t have the answer to that one, I just reflectively think that there was probably the politicization of this pandemic and people were using it as a opportunity to assert certain values and certain ideas, which was not the right time. It was probably a very opportune time for people, it was not the right time.

Phyllis Meadows:

And all of the things that people say about maintaining my rights as a free American, I agree with all of those things but there’s also a time, and I did not see it as infringing on people’s human rights to wear a mask, for example, just all of the conversations around if I wear this mask, I’m not a free American. And I’m like, you haven’t seen slavery, have you? We wear seat belts, we wear shoes, we wear shirts in restaurants, no shoes no service, so why was this so profound of an issue? And that one, I think we’ll be studying that one for the ages. And I know there’s no simple answer.

Steve Sonnier:

No, I agree. I think it’s something that the communications aspect is huge, right? And getting it right, not the first time, but having that ability to change the science as it comes along, right, it’s a continuously evolving process, we evaluate what things look like, and then we can change our minds. And the ability to understand and recognize that seems critical. And I want to turn to, you had talked about future solutions and what that looks like, especially in the idea of hopefully, we can depoliticize this, hopefully we can move towards evidence based policymaking. You were recently appointed to this new council on climate solutions.

Phyllis Meadows:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steve Sonnier:

And the climate side of things also has seen a similar unfortunate politicization of things, but there are real concerns that we’re seeing now in the pandemic, in Iowa we had our derecho, we’ve seen other fires, we’ve seen what’s going on with Texas, we’ve seen these occurrences of climate change happening. And now you’re helping out with this council side of things, in the short term, what do you think are reasonable objective based solutions to combat these big problems that we’ll be facing in Michigan?

Phyllis Meadows:

Well, that’s another tough one that’s probably bigger than my pay level. But I would say, we’re doing some of the right things and that is to constantly educate, constantly bring forth the science. And we always, and you know this as a public health professional yourself is that, we have to be able to adjust and the information that we share about certain things to people in certain ways.

Phyllis Meadows:

So they’re not like two or three trains of thought to help people embrace what’s happening in our climate. And for many years we’ve used things like the ozone, and carbon, and carbon footprint, and that works I think for certain population of people, there are others that need to understand that this flood, if we could show you how this flood and future floods are going to happen, or inclement weather is going to occur, and what that means for you as an individual, because a lot of this stuff is just too big, it’s too big for the average person to undertake. And I think we’ve got to tailor, talk, discuss and have dialogue, what I see often is like you’re in or you’re out, and there’s a gray area, and it’s the gray area that we have to spend our energy on. Where people know something’s happened but they don’t know, it’s just the good Lord just punishing us, which might be true, or is there something that I can do, because even in that frame there are things that you can do.

Phyllis Meadows:

And we just got to come at this in a multitude of ways. And it can’t be sometimes we get real heady with the issues, and not saying that people are dumb, but what people change related to how things impact them personally, and sometimes they have to be forced to change. But we have to personalize the stories a little bit more and try different ways of communicating, and sharing information, and sharing perspectives, and not discounting a perspective, like when people call people climate deniers, that’s too general. And the each person who says, there’s no climate change, we have to understand that. I don’t think you can sell me if you don’t understand why I’m objecting.

Steve Sonnier:

I think that’s very good because when I think about the communication, this ties back into the mass situation too, but it’s the idea of empowerment, right. The idea of, I can do something about this, if it’s something like, for example, the federal government is going to come in there and do something for me or things are happening to me, I think that a lot of folks don’t like the idea of things are happening to me and I have no say in this thing. If you phrase it as, I can protect my community, I can protect my family, here is something reasonable that I can do, it’s a lot more palatable to folks and it’s more effective to hear that instead of hearing negativity, which I think a lot of folks here unfortunately on a daily basis.

Phyllis Meadows:

Right. Yes. I think you hit a very important point there, Stevland, and that is everyone can do something, and everyone doesn’t have to do everything because they just aren’t there yet, like with most things, there’s a continuum of people and we need to be able to get methods, and information, and opportunities for people to contribute, whether it’s about climate change or not, it’s just about Earth, okay. We want to keep your space, your environment well. And yes, the changes in the climate is one thing that’s making it unwell, but that’s too big for me, what is keeping me and my family from being well? And how can you frame that? So I just think sometimes it’s reframing and positioning it in a more relative way. We have to work on that.

Steve Sonnier:

What are you seeing when it comes to other problems folks are facing in the public health scheme of things? We’ve seen COVID-19, we’ve talked about the economy, we’ve talked about climate change, what do you see evolving that is personal to people that they feel like they don’t have power over right now and that they do actually do have power over, that they can change the health and well being of themselves or their community? What do you think is around the corner aside from obviously the COVID-19 pandemic which dominates the airwaves?

Phyllis Meadows:

Mm-hmm (affirmative) I like that question. I don’t know if I have the best answer though. But here are two things that came to mind. So one thing that I can change and that we should have been doing all the time, and that’s good hand washing. Really dedicating ourselves to washing our hands especially at certain times. And that one to me is universal contribution to most especially transmissible diseases, as you know, not everything obviously because there are some that transmit in a lot of different ways. But I just think if we could get people to wash their hands for 20 seconds, not do the cold water rinse and then the rinse and run. If we could get people to dedicate and believe that, that is valuable important.

Phyllis Meadows:

I am concerned about even the use of sanitizers and I can see them and there are certain situations, and I even see them sometimes in my doctor’s offices, they come in and they just use and I’m like, the water is right there, and it’s soap and water, why are you using this stuff? And I believe in it, but I think in the long term, so we have to be thinking about certain of our behaviors now, and how in the long term they could affect us. And that one bothers me because we’re washing away some good stuff and we’re over you utilizing that.

Phyllis Meadows:

And I don’t know if that’s the question your answer, but if there was another thing that I think people can help do, and that is one of the challenges that we’ve seen even with this pandemic that really surfaced, it’s the erosion of the public health system. And the public health system is relatively quiet but what they do is mighty, they keep us safe. From making sure that our water, our food, the restaurants we eat in are safe.

Phyllis Meadows:

And if you’ve watched what’s happened to local public health and public health in communities, there’s been just a constant erosion of the resources, those places where folks really struggled even with the pandemic, were places who were just trying to stay afloat with the basic services they could provide, but were not prepared and ready to take on something like this. That’s why we are hearing people saying they’re tired and they just been drained by this work, because they haven’t had the manpower. And that’s our taxpayers dollars that pay for most of this. And I think this is where people could make a change is to really stand up and advocate for that vital anchor resource in the community because it’s obviously running on full gear currently, and this will happen again, all right, and they need to be ready and prepared, and that lack of readiness is to get our public health infrastructure ready to get the workforce ready. I mean, people like you who are getting the skills to go out there, you’re probably got to go to the hospital and make big money, but we need to build up that infrastructure.

Phyllis Meadows:

And that’s the citizens resource, that’s every citizen, not just the poor, it’s every citizens resource for safety, for well being, and I just believe that there’s a role that average Joe can play in advocating to make sure that, that resource is available, well staffed, and have the infrastructure that they need the technology to continue to serve communities and keep them as safe as they have been.

Steve Sonnier:

I think those are both really good points. The ones I take away from the pandemic is the idea of now I just want to wear a mask during the wintertime, so I don’t have to deal with the cold side of things. I’ve fortunately avoided that for now, so I’m grateful for that, and washing the hands properly too.

Steve Sonnier:

But you make an excellent point about recognizing the importance of public health. We’ve obviously seen that catapulted during the pandemic, but even doing the research and literature into it, the funding for public health in the country has dipped dramatically. And while the funding structures are what they are, one of the other things I always think about is the next generation side of things, I’m and my other colleagues are in the field of public health right now, but we’ve got folks who are in high school, and putting myself in those shoes, going to the nursing side of things, I want to be a community health nurse. For the younger generation are really considering what public health means and what public health can do, because it can take you so many different places, you’ve got the nursing career and whatnot.

Phyllis Meadows:

Mm-hmm (affirmative) Yes, I mean, I agree. And those are the recommendations that are coming out that we really have to look at the pipeline for public health in the next couple of years. Many health departments will lose anywhere from 40 to 50% of their workforce because these are people who have dedicated their careers to being there, and they’re just going to lose a lot of workforce to attrition, and I think we got to grow the next generation of public health leaders.

Phyllis Meadows:

I came through, and to a certain extent even you, you come through with a certain frame of operating, but I think this is a new, we’ve got to really rethink the new. And I’m noticing that in a lot of schools, particularly those that have undergraduate programs, we have a lot of young people who are interested in the profession, but how do we steer them to public health, local public health? It has its benefits.

Phyllis Meadows:

You don’t go into government service to make money, you go in to serve and it should be, you’re going to hate this, it should be required of every graduate to spend so many years in that service, because what it does is it positions you for so many other things, because you have a grounding of every … if you’re in policy space, you can see whether your best ideas around policy really made a difference or not. And that’s where I think we have a disconnect is that we end up sending people with high credentials to places who have never seen the impact of what the decisions they make, the information, the recommendations they make, how they play out on the ground. And so I just think that exposure, and many schools of public health don’t do that, it’s an extra curricular class, it should be a required class that you spend time and really two classes, that you spend time engaging in local public health work.

Steve Sonnier:

And I completely agree with that. I got out of my undergraduate career and one of the first things I did was an EMT for a year working on an ambulance, and I got to go around and see a whole different side of healthcare that you don’t see in an academic care setting. I volunteered in a couple different other places, and those experiences that I was able to achieve outside of the academic setting, were invaluable because they helped inform me what public health looks like on the ground, when it actually is employed. And you can bring that perspective into, eventually, when you get into your further on part of your career, what does this actually look like in practice? Have I been the person who delivers a senior citizen back to their home? Do I know what that transportation looks like? Do I know what this sense is? And it’s very important to have that skill at multiple levels, at all levels.

Phyllis Meadows:

Mm-hmm (affirmative) Because that gives you a better perspective on your decisions, and on the policy decisions, and on the advocacy points. I think the beauty of what you did as an EMT is that you got to go into homes. So it’s not just the person and what we do with that individual, it’s their environment, all of that affects their well being, and being able to see that it’s just there is nothing like it in the world to help you gain a better perspective and realistic perspective on how change happens, how health occurs or not.

Steve Sonnier:

It was an eye opening couple of years, that’s for sure.

Phyllis Meadows:

I bet. I bet.

Steve Sonnier:

I want to being mindful of our time one, one thing we always do want to ask folks too is, you look back at your career, and you’ve had all these excellent opportunities, you’ve been across many different sectors, and if you had to narrow it down, what’s one thing that you thought you knew but were later wrong about?

Phyllis Meadows:

One thing that I thought I knew, I would have to say is that things that I thought I knew and knew well topically, I did not know substantively. So that experience over time really flushes out things that you think you know. And my favorite one is, as a nurse, we are taught to assess, and I think most professionals, we assess and we decide what you need based on some data, and what I learned, more specifically, is the importance of the voice of the people you serve and how that can really alter your thinking. And that the way you may have been trained to think about things systematically, is just not real, that life is much more a spiraling circle than it is a straight line.

Phyllis Meadows:

And so if I had to say, I learned the power of the voice of people that we really weren’t taught, we were taught to rely on our own understanding, our own depth of knowledge, but the real knowledge and service is from the people who are experiencing what you’re seeing and hearing their interpretation of what, because we can terribly be wrong, and knowing that you can be wrong, and very, very wrong.

Steve Sonnier:

I think there’s definitely that humility that comes with it, right, is that idea of you will be wrong eventually.

Phyllis Meadows:

You will be wrong, yes, and that’s right. And no matter how smart you are, you’re going to be wrong.

Steve Sonnier:

Yes, and it comes with the field and it adds to your ability to get better, right. And having those experience of getting folks’ voices really augments your ability to be a better public health professional, right. You take that into every other situation you deal with.

Phyllis Meadows:

Absolutely.

Steve Sonnier:

I think that it’s one of my favorite things about public health is the ability to interact with so many different folks and hear their experiences and that way, when you are creating something, whether it’s novel, like creating the transportation side of things for pregnant folks, you’re gathering those experiences and you know that you’re doing what you can for that community, because you’ve talked with folks and you understand.

Phyllis Meadows:

Believing that expertise doesn’t come just from the academy.

Steve Sonnier:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Phyllis Meadows:

That people forget sometimes when they’re working in communities, particularly poverty communities, and I think I might have come in like that too. I had it all, I knew at all, but recognize that there’s experience in communities, there are credential people in communities who just chose to be there and had some circumstance that put them in a place where you need it to serve them, but doesn’t mean that they don’t have some agency, and sometimes more than you have, it’s just that there are barriers in the system that keep them from acting on that power that they normally have. So, I could do a whole podcast on things I thought I knew that I learned. So that was just the one or two that came to mind and I appreciate the question so much.

Steve Sonnier:

Yes, I appreciate you talking about the agency and power within communities because I think that’s something that we gloss over sometimes in the academia side of things and then you get to the real world experience and it’s, oh my gosh, this is a completely different set of skills that I’ve now got to learn. And so your ability to tap into that throughout your careers is really fantastic to hear about. And I want to thank you so much for coming on today and talking with us about all those wonderful experiences you’ve had.

Phyllis Meadows:

Yes, it’s a pleasure. Great questions. I’ve really enjoyed it. And I hope that I shared something that could be useful to your audience.

Alexis Clark:

That’s it for episode this week. Big thanks to Dr. Meadows for coming on with us today. This episode was hosted and written by Steve Sonnier, and edited and produced by Alexis Clark. You can find more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook. Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Music, and SoundCloud. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your colleagues. Our team can be reached at cph-gradambassador@uiowa.edu. This episode is brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Thank you and stay healthy.