And now it is time to hear from one of the advocates whose work goes on, even when it is no longer news. Tiffany McKever is a digital healthcare strategist, whose work has included researching and developing a Population Health Initiative with a focus on environmental factors related to social determinants of health (SDOH) resulting in significant impacts to healthcare cost access and quality in large urban cities. We turn to her to update us on the state of maternal mortality across the US, as part of our ongoing coverage of this issue (see https://www.fiftyfaceshub.com/category/medicine-and-science/ for other podcasts relating to the topic).

In the US, maternal and women’s health more broadly remains at the forefront of political discourse as states diverge in their approach and the US Supreme Court recently overturned Roe v. Wade. While the Covid pandemic laid bare the disparate experiences of different communities relating to social determinants of health, ongoing news relating to maternal mortality and injury rates that are not evenly spread in the community indicate that this is clearly an issue that is no closer to resolution.

Our conversation starts with some definitions, and updates us on the current state of maternal mortality statistics in the US. We dive in to possible causes as well as solutions that are likely to contribute to alleviating the problem, in particular some spending earmarked by the Biden administration to address women’s health in particular. This is a conversation that sadly continues to run, with little obvious resolution. Watch this space for ongoing coverage of this subject.

In the US, every 12 hours a woman dies due to complications resulting from pregnancy. Additionally, 2 babies die each day. According to data from the national center for health statistics the maternal mortality rate for 2021 was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 23.8 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019 In 2021, the maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.6 times the rate for non-Hispanic White women (26.6) Rates for Black women were significantly higher than rates for White and Hispanic women. The increases from 2020 to 2021 for all race and Hispanic-origin groups were significant. In 2020 the U.S. remains among the most dangerous developed nations for a woman to give birth.

The first part of this series explored the nature of the problem - hearing from Maneesha Ghiya, the founder of FemHealth Ventures about her own birth experience that prompted a career-long devotion to women's health issues, as well as Yele Aluko, EY Americas Chief Medical Officer, director of the EY Center for Health Equity, Adonica Shaw, CEO and Founder of My Wing Women, an online community and resource center for women relating to reproductive and other health issues. Maura Rosenfeld, founder of digital health innovator - MindUp, provides her insights on the innovations and technology that can move the needle in alleviating this problem. Part two built upon this to explore solutions to the problem, returning to our discussion with Yele Aluko to discuss some of the investments in alleviating inequity in the US medical landscape, and where disparities persist. Adonica Shaw then details the importance of community, shared experience, resources and education - all of which she is amplifying through My Wing Women.

In this part three we look around the world to compare the nature of the problem  - hearing from Yele Aluko about his experience in Africa, while Noa Hirsch, an experienced health care director, nurse and business based in Israel shares not only her insights from the ground and from other kinds of disparities on the ground in a much more densely populated country as well as from technology solutions that are in development to chip away at persistent problems in this domain. 

This podcast is brought to you by Fiftyfaces Productions Limited.  Fiftyfaces Productions Limited was founded in 2020 as a media company committed to amplifying diverse voices across a wide range of professions starting with finance and investment.  Our mission is to highlight ideas and debate them, tear down stereotypes and ventilate a broad range of views. We believe that you can't be what you can't see and that you won't see what you don't support and amplify. In 2024 we are committed to ensuring progress towards the following UN SDGs:

⛰️SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing
⛰️SDG 4 Quality Education
⛰️SDG 5 Gender Equality
⛰️SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
⛰️SDG 9 Industry Innovation and Infrastructure
⛰️SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities
⛰️SDG 13 Climate Action

This podcast series is part of our mission to spread awareness of women's health issues and to further SDG 3, 4, 5 and 10.

In the US, every 12 hours a woman dies due to complications resulting from pregnancy. Additionally, 2 babies die each day. According to data from the national center for health statistics the maternal mortality rate for 2021 was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 23.8 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019 In 2021, the maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.6 times the rate for non-Hispanic White women (26.6) Rates for Black women were significantly higher than rates for White and Hispanic women. The increases from 2020 to 2021 for all race and Hispanic-origin groups were significant. In 2020 the U.S. remains among the most dangerous developed nations for a woman to give birth.

The first part of this series explored the nature of the problem - hearing from Maneesha Ghiya, the founder of FemHealth Ventures about her own birth experience that prompted a career-long devotion to women's health issues, as well as Yele Aluko, EY Americas Chief Medical Officer, director of the EY Center for Health Equity, Adonica Shaw, CEO and Founder of My Wing Women, an online community and resource center for women relating to reproductive and other health issues. Maura Rosenfeld, founder of digital health innovator - MindUp, provides her insights on the innovations and technology that can move the needle in alleviating this problem.

In part two we explore solutions to the problem, returning to our discussion with Yele Aluko to discuss some of the investments in alleviating inequity in the US medical landscape, and where disparities persist. Adonica Shaw then details the importance of community, shared experience, resources and education - all of which she is amplifying through My Wing Women.

This podcast is brought to you by Fiftyfaces Productions Limited.  Fiftyfaces Productions Limited was founded in 2020 as a media company committed to amplifying diverse voices across a wide range of professions starting with finance and investment.  Our mission is to highlight ideas and debate them, tear down stereotypes and ventilate a broad range of views. We believe that you can't be what you can't see and that you won't see what you don't support and amplify. In 2024 we are committed to ensuring progress towards the following UN SDGs: 

⛰️SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing
⛰️SDG 4 Quality Education
⛰️SDG 5 Gender Equality
⛰️SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
⛰️SDG 9 Industry Innovation and Infrastructure
⛰️SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities
⛰️SDG 13 Climate Action

This podcast series is part of our mission to spread awareness of women's health issues and to further SDG 3, 4, 5 and 10. 

In the US, every 12 hours a woman dies due to complications resulting from pregnancy. Additionally, 2 babies die each day. According to data from the national center for health statistics the maternal mortality rate for 2021 was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 23.8 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019 In 2021, the maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.6 times the rate for non-Hispanic White women (26.6) Rates for Black women were significantly higher than rates for White and Hispanic women. The increases from 2020 to 2021 for all race and Hispanic-origin groups were significant. In 2020 the U.S. remains among the most dangerous developed nations for a woman to give birth.

In this podcast series we are focusing on first expounding the problem of maternal mortality within the US and on stating the nature of the problem. We are speaking with experts throughout the country.  We are then going to ask why this remains such a persistent problem and look to how we can alleviate it.  We will ask what has been tried, where money has been spent.  We will see what has failed, and what continues to fail to serve women throughout the country. We will explore what has been proven to make a difference in alleviating this problem, and will ask what advances in digital health can bring.

Finally, we will look around the world at solutions that have worked there to lead to a better outcome for mothers and babies.

In this part 1 of the series we will explore the problem, through storytelling, on the ground insights and lived experience. We hear from Maneesha Ghiya, the founder of FemHealth Ventures about her own birth experience that prompted a career-long devotion to women's health issues, as well as Yele Aluko, EY Americas Chief Medical Officer, director of the EY Center for Health Equity, Adonica Shaw, CEO and Founder of My Wing Women, an online community and resource center for women relating to reproductive and other health issues. Maura Rosenfeld, founder of digital health innovator - MindUp, provides her insights on the innovations and technology that can move the needle in alleviating this problem. 

This podcast is brought to you by Fiftyfaces Productions Limited.  Fiftyfaces Productions Limited was founded in 2020 as a media company committed to amplifying diverse voices across a wide range of professions starting with finance and investment.  Our mission is to highlight ideas and debate them, tear down stereotypes and ventilate a broad range of views. We believe that you can't be what you can't see and that you won't see what you don't support and amplify. In 2024 we are committed to ensuring progress towards the following UN SDGs: 

⛰️SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing
⛰️SDG 4 Quality Education
⛰️SDG 5 Gender Equality
⛰️SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
⛰️SDG 9 Industry Innovation and Infrastructure
⛰️SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities
⛰️SDG 13 Climate Action

This podcast series is part of our mission to spread awareness of women's health issues and to further SDG 3, 4, 5 and 10. 

Amy Lehman is Founder and CEO at Lake Tanganyika Floating Health Clinic, an international organization, whose mission is to address the problem of healthcare access for millions of people who live in the isolated, but strategically critical lake, Tanganyika, great lakes region of central Africa. She received both an MD and MBA from the University of Chicago, and trained in general surgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Additionally, she was a senior fellow with McLean center for Clinical Medical Ethics. She received the 2014 distinguished young alumni award from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She has been mentioned by Newsweek as one of “150 Women who Shake the World” and by a number of other publications. 

We start with discussing Amy's precociously early interest in medicine and brain surgeries and her path through both her medical and business degree.  We hear about the illness that sent her on a different path from surgery and the serendipity that brought her to Lake Tanganyika.  It was witnessing the impact of funding there that inspired her to return to the region to establish the Lake Tanganyika Floating Health Clinic and we hear about the somewhat unorthodox marketing strategy that she uses to promote it and its location!

We speak in some detail about the current state of development aid and how it is often well-intended but clumsily executed and suggest a different, more nuanced, and more targeted path.

Finally we discuss high and low points of working in such a challenged area, the role of power dynamics in medicine and the impact that such work has. 

This series is being supported by an anonymous supporter and we are using our traditional sponsor slots to shine a light on organizations that promote diversity in medicine.  These include

The Doctors Back to School Program through the American Medical Association which sends minority physicians and minority medical students into schools in underserved communities as a way to introduce children to minority medical role models.  Contact dbts@ama-assn.org for more information on the Doctors Back to School program. https://www.ama-assn.org/member-groups-sections/minority-affairs/doctors-back-school-program 

GLMA is a national organization committed to ensuring health equity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) and all sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals, and equality for LGBTQ/SGM health professionals in their work and learning environments.  To achieve this mission, GLMA utilizes the scientific expertise of its diverse multidisciplinary membership to inform and drive advocacy, education, and research. https://www.glma.org/index.cfm?nodeid=1

The American Medical Women's Association is focused on supporting and retaining women in healthcare through promoting gender equity in medicine.    https://www.amwa-doc.org/our-work/initiatives/gender-equity-task-force/invest-in-her/

The National Orthopaedic Alliance and international Orthopaedic Diversity Alliance. https://www.orthopaedicdiversity.org/

Nkem Egekeze is chief innovation officer and Managing Director of Stealth Startup.  He previously worked as an orthopedic surgery resident and as a research scholar at the University of Georgia, and a strategy advisor at Harvard Innovation Labs. He obtained his medical degree from University of Michigan medical school. He focuses on providing value-based health research and innovation insights for investment executives and medical professionals focusing in particular on cost savings and customized insights. 

Our conversation track's Nkem's own career, which involved some stints in emerging markets and we discuss the insights that working in these more resource constrained communities provided in terms of what represents "value" in healthcare as well as waste.  Nkem has integrated these insights into his own approach to medicine now, where he is an advocate for value-based research and insights that can be gained through innovation and change.

We speak about the potential for innovation in medicine as well as some of the shortcomings in the profession currently in terms of under-representation as well as waste. 

This series is being supported by an anonymous supporter and we are using our traditional sponsor slots to shine a light on organizations that promote diversity in medicine.  These include

The Doctors Back to School Program through the American Medical Association which sends minority physicians and minority medical students into schools in underserved communities as a way to introduce children to minority medical role models.  Contact dbts@ama-assn.org for more information on the Doctors Back to School program. https://www.ama-assn.org/member-groups-sections/minority-affairs/doctors-back-school-program 
GLMA is a national organization committed to ensuring health equity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) and all sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals, and equality for LGBTQ/SGM health professionals in their work and learning environments.  To achieve this mission, GLMA utilizes the scientific expertise of its diverse multidisciplinary membership to inform and drive advocacy, education, and research. https://www.glma.org/index.cfm?nodeid=1

The American Medical Women's Association is focused on supporting and retaining women in healthcare through promoting gender equity in medicine.    https://www.amwa-doc.org/our-work/initiatives/gender-equity-task-force/invest-in-her/

The National Orthopaedic Alliance and international Orthopaedic Diversity Alliance. https://www.orthopaedicdiversity.org/

Our wide-ranging conversation starts with what drew Veronica to psychiatry and her path through medicine.  We speak about the evolution of psychiatry over her career, and the integration of it with our growing understanding of neuroscience and neuro-imaging.  We speak about an age of enlightment of sorts that the area is entering given the ability for neuroscience to further explain the mysteries of the brain.

We dive in then to some of the specialist areas that Veronica focuses on, some of which are the subject of her books, such as the science of memory and how it evolves, as well as the way that studying the extreme expressions of an illness can help us to understand more mainstream versions of it. We speak about the development of the brain as we age and some of the abstraction that we can develop, which is, in effect an advantage.

A lifelong advocate for women in medicine, Veronica speaks about her own experience as a practitioner and the position of women in the healthcare system and how much improvement still needs to occur. 

This series is being supported by an anonymous supporter and we are using our traditional sponsor slots to shine a light on organizations that promote diversity in medicine.  These include

The Doctors Back to School Program through the American Medical Association which sends minority physicians and minority medical students into schools in underserved communities as a way to introduce children to minority medical role models.  Contact dbts@ama-assn.org for more information on the Doctors Back to School program. https://www.ama-assn.org/member-groups-sections/minority-affairs/doctors-back-school-program 

GLMA is a national organization committed to ensuring health equity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) and all sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals, and equality for LGBTQ/SGM health professionals in their work and learning environments.  To achieve this mission, GLMA utilizes the scientific expertise of its diverse multidisciplinary membership to inform and drive advocacy, education, and research. https://www.glma.org/index.cfm?nodeid=1

The American Medical Women's Association is focused on supporting and retaining women in healthcare through promoting gender equity in medicine.    https://www.amwa-doc.org/our-work/initiatives/gender-equity-task-force/invest-in-her/

The National Orthopaedic Alliance and international Orthopaedic Diversity Alliance. https://www.orthopaedicdiversity.org/

Maneesha Ghiya is Managing Partner and Founder of FemHealth Ventures, a firm focused on providing investment capital to entrepreneurs focused on women’s health. Investing in healthcare since 2000, Maneesha has invested via public equities, private equities and as a hedge fund specialist.  She is a Senior Advisor to ExSight Ventures, an ophthalmology-focused venture capital fund and serves on multiple boards.

Our conversation starts with Maneesha’s background and her early interest in the intersection of healthcare, engineering and business.  We then move to the personal experience when delivering her child that catalyzed her interest in FemHealth and the venture fund that she founded with this as its focus.  There is a startling disparity in funding, awareness and the profile attached to female health issues and we list some of these – the lack of participation by women in drug trials, the low level of research dollars applied to health conditions that traditionally affect women and the low level of knowledge regarding disparities in how certain illnesses – e.g. cardiac arrest – present.

Maneesha lists some of the innovative solutions being sourced to solve some of these problems and what kind of commercial potential they could have.

This series is being supported by an anonymous supporter and we are using our traditional sponsor slots to shine a light on organizations that promote diversity in medicine.  These include

The Doctors Back to School Program through the American Medical Association which sends minority physicians and minority medical students into schools in underserved communities as a way to introduce children to minority medical role models.  Contact dbts@ama-assn.org for more information on the Doctors Back to School program. https://www.ama-assn.org/member-groups-sections/minority-affairs/doctors-back-school-program 

GLMA is a national organization committed to ensuring health equity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) and all sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals, and equality for LGBTQ/SGM health professionals in their work and learning environments.  To achieve this mission, GLMA utilizes the scientific expertise of its diverse multidisciplinary membership to inform and drive advocacy, education, and research. https://www.glma.org/index.cfm?nodeid=1

The American Medical Women's Association is focused on supporting and retaining women in healthcare through promoting gender equity in medicine.    https://www.amwa-doc.org/our-work/initiatives/gender-equity-task-force/invest-in-her/

The National Orthopaedic Alliance and international Orthopaedic Diversity Alliance. https://www.orthopaedicdiversity.org/