Clinically Speaking

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to bring you the latest Clinically Speaking Newsletter, this one featuring two articles focused on recent developments in the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

To start off, we spotlight new systems that faculty members helped to put in place at our affiliated hospital systems — UCHealth and Children’s Hospital Colorado — to deal with problematic behavior from patients, whether it’s on the adult side or the pediatric side.

“We have seen an increase of hostile language on the part of patients to providers,” Scott Laker, MD, associate dean for clinical affairs at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, says in the article. “And that’s not just at this institution, that’s across the country. With increasing access to providers through patient health portals, telephone calls, and virtual health, all of those things are increasing the touch points. So, there’s an increased volume of areas of concern. Physical violence, thankfully, is uncommon, but it’s what we call a never event. We never want that to happen.”

This issue of the newsletter also includes an article about a recent health fair put on by the Aurora Wellness Community (AWC), a partnership between the Aurora community and the CU School of Medicine aimed at building health, wealth, and well-being for residents of the neighborhoods closest to the CU Anschutz Medical Campus — some of the most medically underserved ZIP codes in Colorado.

The event brought together centers and departments from the CU Anschutz Medical Campus and CU School of Medicine with a host of community organizations to offer services including skin cancer screening, colorectal cancer screening kit distribution, routine blood work, rheumatology screenings, child and adult vaccinations, dental and hearing screenings, HIV and STD screenings, blood pressure checks, and pharmacist consultations, as well as children’s crafts and face painting.

“It was an amazing opportunity for the community to receive services they historically have had trouble accessing from a fundamental resource perspective — transportation, money, insurance — but also due to psychological factors like fear, past bad experiences, people not listening, or medical teams not understanding their unique circumstances,” Maureen Maycheco, the AWC’s communications and marketing lead, says in the story. “Those community partners coming together with the campus partners created this whole health continuum, in one tiny high school, for people to walk around and access for free.”

We hope you enjoy reading about your colleagues, and we look forward to hearing how your department is improving clinical care.

Anne Fuhlbrigge, MD, MS
Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs