The Scranton Area Community Foundation awarded The Wright Center for Patient & Community Engagement an $18,500 grant in support of the organization’s Community Health Workers’ Patient Assistance Program in Lackawanna County. Participating in the ceremonial check presentation, from left, are William Waters, vice chairperson, The Wright Center for Community Health Board of Directors; Mary Marrara, secretary, The Wright Center for Community Health Board of Directors; Laura Ducceschi, president and CEO, Scranton Area Community Foundation; Kara Seitzinger director of public affairs/advisor liaison to president and CEO, The Wright Center; and Gerard Geoffroy, chairperson, The Wright Center for Community Health Board of Directors.

The Wright Center for Patient & Community Engagement (TWCPCE) was recently awarded an $18,500 grant from the Scranton Area Community Foundation to support the organization’s Community Health Workers’ Patient Assistance Program in Lackawanna County. 

Community health workers will use the grant funds to respond to the hardships identified in social and economic determinants of health (SDOH) screenings that are administered at a patient’s first appointment with an emphasis on providing food donation bags, bus passes, and filled school backpacks for needy students who reside in Lackawanna County. 

“Patients will receive these items to help alleviate poverty in Lackawanna County. We will provide 74 children with backpacks filled with school supplies, making sure they have the supplies they need to learn and grow,” said Kara Seitzinger, director of public affairs for The Wright Center for Community Health. “This program will help ensure that individuals and families will not go hungry, and that reliable transportation will be available when needed.” 

In addition to the children’s backpacks, the organization’s goal is to provide 521 bus passes and food donation bags to 207 families and individuals. 

During a SDOH screening, community health workers determine if a family is experiencing financial hardship or food insecurity and transportation issues and more. 

In 2021, The Wright Center’s community health workers made 2,630 outreaches to patients receiving services at the Scranton practice, illustrating the dire needs of individuals who completed the SDOH screenings. Housing, food, utility, phone, health care assistance, clothing, childcare and transportation were needed, along with behavioral health and stress relief. 

In 2020, TWCPCE participated in food drives that fed 1,800 families. The team also distributed 1,000 school backpacks and 378 winter coats.

“We provide 160 bus passes every six months per clinic and at least 10 bags of food per week to needy families,” said Amanda Vommaro, co-director of TWCPCE. “The need is growing due to the ongoing pandemic and the economic impacts of the war in Ukraine. Our community health workers will have the necessary resources to immediately respond to needs identified during social and economic determinants of health screenings, thanks to the resources provided by the generosity of the Scranton Area Community Foundation.”

TWCPCE’s mission is to improve the health of the community through education, advocacy, patient-centered services and efforts directed toward the SDOH. Its 18-member board, comprised of Wright Center for Community Health patients and area professionals, is passionate about helping the less fortunate in the service area, including those experiencing homelessness, poverty, food insecurity, social isolation or other hardships and encompasses people of all ethnic/racial backgrounds and ages.

The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education celebrated the accomplishments of 69 residents and fellows who completed their specialized education and training during the 44^th annual graduation ceremony on Saturday, June 25, at the Scranton Cultural Center at the Masonic Temple.

The Class of 2022, known for its resiliency and dedication in the face of a worldwide pandemic, features graduates from the Internal Medicine (28), Regional Family Medicine (11), National Family Medicine (16) and Psychiatry (4) residencies, and Cardiovascular Disease (3), Gastroenterology (2) and Geriatrics (3) fellowships, many of whom will continue their education or practice of medicine in Northeast Pennsylvania.

The graduating class also includes the first two dental graduates who are members of The Wright Center’s affiliation with the New York University Langone Dental Medicine Postdoctoral Residency Program. 

The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education’s cohort of highly skilled and compassionate caregivers will help to address the nation’s physician workforce shortage and improve access to care.

“Through it all, though, The Wright Center has remained true by following our guiding mission and core values, which remain our bedrock,” said Linda Thomas-Hemak, M.D., president and CEO, in her welcoming remarks. “We have addressed the far-ranging effects of world events on the people we aim to lift up and provide opportunity to every single day.

“There is no doubt that COVID-19 has reshaped health care and how we train and educate our residents and fellows, who offer hope for the future of our national health care delivery and educational systems,” she said. “I know the experience has been challenging – fraught with uncertainty, anxiety and unconscionable loss.”

Graduates of this year’s class who plan to stay in the region to practice medicine or continue their studies include Dr. Gurminder Singh, who will begin an internal medicine residency at The Wright Center; Dr. Roger Elliott, who will join Adfinitas Health, Scranton, as a hospitalist; Dr. Pranav Karambelkar and Dr. Purveshkumar Patel who will remain with The Wright Center for a Cardiovascular Disease fellowship; Dr. Jacob Miller, who will join the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre as a teaching hospitalist, and Dr. Saba Safdar who will join the recently opened Lehigh Valley Hospital in Dickson City as a hospitalist.

Other members of the graduating class will continue their education or begin practicing medicine across the United States in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C. 

Following the welcome address, Pranav Karambelkar, M.D., an internal medicine chief resident and president of house staff council, congratulated his fellow graduates on their successful completion of their residencies and fellowships. 

“The onset of the pandemic threw a mixed bag of emotions at us, including a sense of fear, uncertainty, fatigue, isolation, anger and grief. It tested our knowledge, our patience and our confidence,” he said during his graduate remarks. “We call them ‘challenges,’ but at times that felt like a major understatement. We knew little about how to tackle this virus and how to comfort our patients, friends, families and ourselves. But we as residents never backed down. We wore those fearless faces under our masks everyday with pride as we cared for our patients.

“We looked to each other for emotional support and a sense of normalcy in a life that was otherwise stressful,” added Karambelkar. “The sense of camaraderie was like no other and it’s a feeling I’ll never forget.” 

Jumee Barooah, M.D., The Wright Center’s designated institutional official, acknowledged the graduates’ “dedication and determination and patient and community service” that played an oversized role in their success.

“As practicing physicians, you are also lifelong learners and you are not finished growing as individuals and clinicians,” she said. “You will continue to be problem-solvers as you adapt, study and research symptoms and issues in order to shape and improve your chosen profession.” 

Keynote speaker Harold Baillie, Ph.D., chairperson of The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education Board of Directors, provided sage advice to each member of the class as they embark on a lifelong career of care and service to their patients. 

“That humility leads directly to your responsibility: They have to come to you in trust, for whatever help and hope you can give them,” Baillie added. “By welcoming them, you take on the utmost responsibility to see them through their journey, committing your ability to its absolute limit in the face of nature every bit as dangerous and beautifully resourceful as Kipling described. The dignity and limited resources of that human being now in your charge demand of you no less.”

In his closing remarks, Lawrence LeBeau, D.O., program director of the National Family Medicine Residency, reminded graduates that their experiences during their time with The Wright Center do not define their futures as medical professionals. 

“You have all shown remarkable resilience and a resolve to learn your craft while providing compassionate, high-quality, community-oriented care despite all the additional challenges thrown at you by the pandemic,” said LeBeau. “Hopefully, the experience and some of the lessons learned from it will help to guide your career by motivating you to be strong advocates for your patients, strong advocates and supporters of a more just and equitable health care system and, more broadly, as leaders in your communities to support the changes needed to build a more just and equitable society as a whole.”

Established in 1976, The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education is the nation’s largest Health Resources and Services Administration-funded Teaching Health Center for Graduate Medical Education program, a critical component of the country’s physician workforce pipeline that fills an urgent need for primary care physicians. 

In the ongoing effort to reduce COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths across the region, The Wright Center for Community Health is following federal and state “test-to-treat” guidelines by providing certain patients with therapeutic treatments for COVID-19 such as Pfizer’s Paxlovid.

Paxlovid – which is available only by prescription – has been found to substantially decrease the chances of severe symptoms in high-risk patients such as older adults if it is started early in the course of infection, typically within five days of symptoms appearing. Individuals 12 and older who test positive for coronavirus are eligible for the treatment if they meet certain criteria, such as having an underlying medical condition that puts them at increased risk for complications.

Individuals who are prescribed the treatment during a visit at The Wright Center for Community Health Mid Valley Practice in Jermyn can obtain the medication on site. At The Wright Center’s other clinics in Northeast Pennsylvania, a patient in need can have the prescription immediately sent a pharmacy supplier of Paxlovid. 

For eligible patients, The Wright Center also continues to offer monoclonal antibody infusions – an FDA-authorized therapy that has been shown to lessen the severity of COVID-19 symptoms for certain individuals deemed at increased risk of hospitalization. 

Although several monoclonal antibody medicines have received the FDA’s authorization during the pandemic, only one, bebtelovimab, is currently continuing to be used because of its proven effectiveness against the omicron variant. Delivered via an intravenous “push,” the medication is administered to the patient in about two to six minutes, followed by one hour of observation in the clinic. The therapy is a one-time treatment.

In total, The Wright Center has administered more than 1,400 COVID-19 monoclontal treatments in the past 18 months, helping to lower the burden on the region’s hospitals by limiting severe illness and saving lives.

The Wright Center for Community Health is now administering booster doses of Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, per the guidelines approved last week by federal regulators.

Youngsters in that age group who completed their two-dose primary series with the same vaccine at least five months ago can be scheduled for an appointment at one of these Wright Center primary care clinics:

• Mid Valley Practice, 5 S. Washington Ave., Jermyn: 570.230.0019
• Scranton Practice, 501 S. Washington Ave., Scranton: 570.941.0630
• South Franklin Street Practice, 335 S. Franklin St., Wilkes-Barre: 570.591.5283

Patients are encouraged to schedule appointments online by visiting TheWrightCenter.org.

The COVID-19 virus, which emerged in December 2019 and then spawned several variants, remains a risk this month even as area residents look forward to the summer vacation season.

The safety of the booster dose was assessed in about 400 children, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The most commonly reported side effects included pain, redness and swelling at the injection site, as well as flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache, fatigue, muscle or joint pain and chills.

Under the latest U.S. health guidance, anyone 5 and older is now eligible for at least one booster dose. People who are 50 and older are eligible for two booster doses.

Families throughout Northeast Pennsylvania are struggling to put food on their tables. The lingering supply-chain effects from the COVID-19 pandemic and the surging rate of inflation, combined with the rising costs of food, gasoline and medicine, are forcing many families to choose between those three essential items. Sadly, many times food becomes the item families skimp on. 

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Northeast Regional Food Bank and The Wright Center for Community Health partnered several years ago to provide food to underserved areas of Lackawanna and Luzerne counties where food pantries aren’t as plentiful. 

“We’re doing it together. The Weinberg Foundation has been wonderful to work with. They get grants and donations for food. I reach out to Mary Ellen Spellman when we need to distribute food and she gets the order together for us,” explained Gerri McAndrew, co-director of Patient & Community Engagement at The Wright Center for Community Health.

“The Weinberg Foundation always gives us a generous supply of fresh and canned foods and dairy and I think that’s great. A lot of people and businesses donate canned goods which we appreciate,” said McAndrew. “Groceries have gotten so much more expensive. Not that everyone we help is on a fixed income, but some of these people must make a choice between their food and medicines.”

“The Northeast Regional Weinberg Food Bank has a wonderful partnership with The Wright Center,” added Mary Ellen Spellman, Food Bank Director. “During the pandemic, The Wright Center was one of the first member agencies asking how they can help families within our area. They hosted a drive-thru distribution on a Saturday afternoon in May of 2020 distributing food to hundreds of families at the height of the pandemic. The work that we do could not be accomplished without the support of partner agencies like The Wright Center.

“They truly help us in the spirit of ‘People Helping People,’” Spellman concluded.

At a food pantry day in May, one woman told McAndrew, “I need a cow with my children. You don’t know how much milk I go through.” Even if the donated food helps them for one week, it’s a week that parents do not have to worry about what or how to feed their children. 

It isn’t just families that benefit from the food pantry. Many recipients are older individuals who are on fixed incomes that don’t cover all their expenses. “We have an older couple who lives next door to us here in Jermyn, and when I’m out at the shed and I see the woman outside, I’ll ask if she needs anything and bring her something over from our freezer. She’s so appreciative of the help,” said McAndrew. 

The partnership between these two organizations clearly demonstrates their commitment to the Northeast Pennsylvania community. McAndrew looks forward to the day when the COVID-19 pandemic is a thing of the past and more food pantry donation days can take place. 

“I love my job. I love doing what I do for the community. I realize how fortunate we are. I’m so grateful to The Weinberg Foundation for helping make all of this happen,” said McAndrew. 

Discusses effectiveness of syringe service programs for harm reduction

Pennsylvania Department of Health Acting Secretary and physician general Denise Johnson, M.D., FACOG, FACHE, delivers remarks at a press briefing held at the Scranton Practice.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Acting Secretary and physician general visited The Wright Center for Community Health, an Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence, on Wednesday, May 11 to discuss syringe service programs and the important role they play in the drug treatment process.

The visit included a private roundtable discussion, tour of the primary care and Ryan White HIV/AIDS clinical space and a press briefing with regional print and broadcast media at the Scranton Practice. Denise Johnson, M.D., FACOG, FACHE, was joined by Steven Ross, state Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs (DDAP), Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, delegates from the offices of state Representatives Kyle Mullins and Thom Welby, Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak, president and CEO of The Wright Centers, and other executive leadership.

“Thanks to syringe service programs already in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, many Pennsylvanians have found their bridge to treatment and social services,” Dr. Johnson said. “We want to reduce the number of drug overdose deaths. We need to use every tool at our disposal and the success of existing programs is evidence that residents across the state could experience better health outcomes if more syringe service programs are available.”

Nationwide, syringe service programs are also associated with a significant reduction in injection-related HIV and Hepatitis C.

“It is more vital than ever that we bridge the divide between mental health and substance use disorders that still exist,” said Ross, the special assistant to the secretary of DDAP. “By offering harm reduction options like syringe service programs, we can meet people who use drugs where they are and work to address the conditions of their drug use.”

Scott Constantini, associate vice president for Primary Care and Recovery Services Integration at The Wright Center for Community Health, added that people who use a syringe service program are five times more likely to receive treatment for their substance use disorder and three times more likely to stop using drugs.

“For over 25 years, I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of individuals’ recovery journeys through the delivery of comprehensive behavioral health support,” Constantini said. “This perspective has opened my eyes to the real barriers, determinants and stigma that people in recovery are faced with every day.

“We are proud to be a part of the progress that has been made in our community, but we still have much work to do together to expand the services, support and compassion for people who use drugs,” he added, during the press briefing.