Kathryn Andolsek
Dr. Kathryn Andolsek grew up in both Chisholm, Minnesota and Washington, D.C. Her parents were supporters of progressive causes, including racial justice, and instilled these values in her. When she attended the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, she pursued family medicine, even though much of the medical community looked down on such departments. As a student, she was involved in community health work and chose to continue this work in a clinic in Chicago after graduating before returning to Duke and becoming involved in the Family Medicine Residency education. She has worked to ensure residencies more actively recruit a more diverse body of candidates and address potential barriers to disadvantaged students, such as an overreliance on standardized test scores. She encourages residents to more deeply engage with the community in which they work. Additionally, she worked to design the Graduate of Medical Education program to support disadvantaged students and help them eventually get accepted into medical school. Also, through the Division of Community Health and Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Dr. Andolsek has been involved in the creation of an array of community health programs that provide care and social services to underserved patients. This has included care for HIV/AIDS patients, the Latino community, children living with food insecurity, and the elderly. To enable these initiatives, she has fostered a multiple of partnerships, including other types of health practitioners and community leaders. Her family medicine background has allowed her to broadly focus on marginalized communities, rather than exclusively one group or type of health problem.
Full Interview Audio:
Interview Topic Log
0:43 Childhood, growing up in Chisholm Minnesota, multigenerational household, family economic struggles 3:52 Living in Washington D.C., exposure to diversity 5:08 Education, girls’ Catholic school 6:35 Diversity in Chisholm, living in an immigrant community 8:33 Father’s experience in a Slovenian immigrant family, father’s work with Congressman John Blatnik and activist influence 13:27 Applying to Northwestern for BS/MD, lack of advising, education experience as a woman 16:29 Emphasis on service in girls’ Catholic high school, activist exposure 17:33 Experience as a woman in medical school, coping with sexism 23:00 Encountering racism at Duke in residency, merging of Lincoln Hospital and Watts Hospital 25:40 Diverse peers at Duke, poor attitudes towards family medicine, diversity and family medicine activism as a medical student 32:44 Early involvement with community health in Chicago, eventual path back to Duke and residency teaching 36:38 Work with AIDS patients and care for low-income patients 49:16 Work in multidisciplinary teams, working with trusted members of the community 53:48 Educating residents about Durham history and diversity, activism of Lovest Alexander Jr. 57:32 Using recruitment of underrepresented minorities as performance metric for medical school, importance of data 1:00:56 GME program to increase diversity, learning to support students through the program, student advocacy, parental leave for students 1:05:43 Work in obstetrics 1:08:18 Students’ advocacy for parental leave, impact of board requirements 1:09:50 Learning to accept “baby steps” towards change 1:10:35 Issues with funding 1:11:45 Providing quality of education to residents, problems with residents having to complete Electronic Health Records work, measuring competency 1:14:35 Measuring Duke’s success through Durham community health outcomes 1:17:36 Diversity training, importance of diversity in teams 1:19:45 GME funding and student support, rewards of seeing student success 1:22:53 Increasing diversity in Duke health leadership 1:23:59 Value of pathway programs, examples of strong GME programs 1:26:34 Racial justice advocacy as a white woman, using leadership positionsfor advocacy 1:29:53 Work with addiction, benefits of family medicine for involvement in a variety of fields 1:34:23 Learning to persuade and negotiate to lead to changes 1:38:40 Benefit of diversity in health education in improving patient care
Link to Full Interview Transcript