SOSL was presented an “80% by 2018 National Achievement Award” during a on March 1 in honor of Colon Cancer Awareness Month.

Sutton, also assistant dean of medical education, clinical skills at the UofL School of Medicine, founded Surgery on Sunday Louisville, which provides colonoscopies and other surgical procedures for individuals who are uninsured or underinsured. Sutton, along with UofL medical students Sam Walling and Jamie Heimroth, who volunteer for SOSL, traveled to New York City to receive the award and participate in the live event.

was co-founded by the American Cancer Society and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 80% by 2018 National Achievement Award recognizes individuals and organizations who are dedicating their time, talent and expertise to advancing needed initiatives that support the shared goal to regularly screen 80 percent of adults 50 and over by 2018. SOSL was one of five honorees recognized, along with the grand prize winner, Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center.

Sutton, who practices with UofL Physicians and is chief of surgery at Jewish Hospital, part of KentuckyOne Health, has special expertise in minimally invasive procedures and surgical endoscopy. Through Surgery on Sunday Louisville, she and other physicians and health-care professionals provide in-kind outpatient surgical and endoscopic care to income-eligible members of the Louisville community who are uninsured or underinsured. Among the services provided are colonoscopies for patients who may be at high risk for colon cancer but who do not have adequate health insurance coverage to obtain the recommended colonoscopies to screen for the disease.

Despite a sharp increase in the percentage of individuals who have health insurance coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Sutton said some individuals still cannot obtain the tests they need.

“We have had a very successful rollout of the ACA here in Kentucky. However, there are still gaps,” Sutton said. “We have people in Kentucky who cannot afford their ACA deductibles or insurance premiums. They are falling into those gaps. There are high risk people for colon cancer whose insurance doesn’t cover the recommended screenings so they would have to pay for endoscopies.”

Last year, Sutton, Walling and others published research in the showing that providing free colonoscopies to high-risk individuals who could not afford the tests was cost-neutral compared with individuals who developed advanced colon cancer.

“One of the biggest messages we give is that Kentucky is doing a great job, but we still have a need for this program,” she said.

In her role as director of community engagement for the UofL Department of Surgery, Sutton says she sees department-wide support for health equity.

“Our department as a group really does want to see surgical access for all people in our community. Individually, our surgeons stand behind that and put forth their time and resources so anyone who needs a surgical specialist gets the help they need. I am very proud of how they do that,” she said. 

Walling, a fourth-year medical student at UofL, has volunteered with SOSL since its inception and now serves as the group’s medical director. He helped develop a program to formalize medical student participation in SOSL, which he says will enable a higher percentage of medical students to gain clinical experience prior to entering residency, allow them increased understanding of health disparities and the role of humanism in medicine. Walling will report on the effort, done in conjunction with the Distinction in Medical ����ֱ�� program, at the Association for Surgical ����ֱ�� Annual Meeting in April in San Diego.

Fulbright-Fogarty Fellowships are offered for students enrolled in medical school or a graduate program in public health through a partnership between the U.S. government’s Fulbright international study program and the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health. This is the first time two students in the same medical school have received Fulbright-Fogarty fellowships in a single year.

Eaton and Flynn have cultivated their interest in global health through participation in the (DIGH) at UofL, a supplemental curriculum for students in the school of medicine that introduces students to aspects of global health through clinical, social, political and epidemiological study.

“The Fulbright-Fogarty Fellowship is a great opportunity to participate in real-world experience in global health research,” said Bethany Hodge, MD, MPH, director of the DIGH track and the UofL School of Medicine’s Global ����ֱ�� Office. “These experiences will take their academic skills to a higher level and prepare them for careers in global health.”

Eaton’s research to focus on traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries

As part of her research, Eaton will conduct a retrospective review of trauma records to determine the causes of traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries (TBI/SCI) as well as their treatment outcomes. In addition, she will conduct research to identify the best predictors of surgical outcomes in TBI/SCI patients using the patient’s signs and symptoms to determine a surgical plan since the hospital lacks advanced imaging facilities such as CT or MRI. Eaton will conduct her research at Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) in Lilongwe, Malawi, under the guidance of Anthony Charles, M., MPH, and other faculty with the UNC Malawi Surgical Initiative. She will use the surgical initiative’s trauma and surgical registry, one of the largest such registries in sub-Saharan Africa.

“As a medical student planning to pursue neurosurgery and dreaming of practicing overseas in the places where I am most needed, I couldn’t have crafted a better learning opportunity for myself,” Eaton said.

As an undergraduate at UofL, Eaton was one of the inaugural James Graham Brown Fellows. That fellowship provided her with opportunities to travel, which sparked her interest in global health. She plans to enter neurosurgery and incorporate global health into her practice. [Hear Jessica Eaton’s interview on ]

Flynn’s research to focus on HIV prevention

Flynn’s research will focus on preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission. Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) helps increase lifespan and delay progression to AIDS in patients with HIV and is considered key to the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Flynn’s project will investigate whether text messages sent to pregnant HIV-positive women will increase ART adherence and prenatal health care visits. She will conduct her research under primary investigator Alison Drake, PhD, MPH, in collaboration with the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Nairobi and the Kenya Research Program at the University of Washington.

“This is an excellent opportunity to really understand how medical research can differ from benchwork,” Flynn said. “Epidemiology, clinical trials conducted in an international setting, IRB approval and ethical considerations are all things I want to incorporate into my career in academia and in global health.”

This year’s fellowship will be the second Fulbright experience for Flynn. After receiving her bachelor’s degree at UofL in 2012, Flynn received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Sivas, Turkey, where she taught university-level English-speaking courses to college freshmen at Cumhuriet University. Flynn’s work in Kenya will build on experience she had during a medical service trip to Tanzania where she worked in an area with a high prevalence of HIV infections. She hopes to pursue a career in academic medicine and work in international health and research as an ob/gyn. [Hear Mackenzie Flynn’s interview on ]

Hodge said the experience and research training Eaton and Flynn will receive will benefit not only their academic careers, but the other students in the DIGH track once they return to UofL to complete their MD program in August of 2017.

“We talk about global health as an academic discipline and think critically about the gaps in knowledge in this field. We spend a lot of time looking at the literature and thinking about the roles of physicians as researchers, policy-makers and social advocates in global health, in addition to being clinicians,” Hodge said. “I look forward to these students returning after their fellowships because their boots-on-the-ground experience will enrich the discussions we have as a group. Hopefully they will inspire other students to pursue academic work in global health.”

About the Fulbright-Fogarty Fellowship in Public Health

The Fulbright Program, the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government, has partnered with Fogarty International Center of the U.S. National Institutes of Health to offer Fellowships in Public Health. These fellowships grant medical students and graduate students interested in global health the opportunity to conduct research in public health and clinical research in resource-limited settings. Fellows spend nine months in one of nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia or South America. The Fulbright-Fogarty program began in 2011.