FEATURED VOLUNTEER

 

Name: Dr. Alan Graber

Profession:  I have been a physician specializing in internal medicine, with a subspecialty interest in endocrinology; the study of glands and hormones. I was in private practice at St. Thomas Hospital from 1971 to 1997, when I joined the Vanderbilt faculty as a full-time Professor of Medicine and clinical director of endocrinology. I retired from Vanderbilt in 2006.

 

How long you have served at Siloam? What is your primary role at Siloam?

I have served as a volunteer at Siloam since about 2002 or 2003, before the present clinic was built.  My role at Siloam has always been to see endocrinology consultations; about 50% of the patients I see have diabetes.

 

Describe your position/role with Nashville Consortium of Safety Net Providers:

The Nashville Consortium of Safety Net Providers consists of seven independent clinic systems (one of which is Siloam), which operate 21 clinics in Davidson County for socially and financially deprived patients.  Combined, they provide medical services to about 105,000 persons, 7500 of whom have recognized diabetes.  In 2009 the board of the consortium decided that care of chronic diseases, especially diabetes, was their priority.  They asked Dr. Clifton Meador, director of the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance, and me to co-direct a Diabetes Improvement Program. Suddenly, though retired, I had 7500 new diabetic patients!  We meet monthly with the clinic directors and the clinicians who are actually treating these patients. We provide continuing medical education for the doctors and nurse practitioners.  We make suggestions for improving the pattern of care in the clinics, thus encouraging the clinicians to spend their time dealing with the many barriers these patients face.  Currently we are focusing on appropriate use of insulin in this population and in decreasing the high utilization of emergency rooms for care.

 

What is your motivation for caring for indigent populations? Has your Jewish faith played a part in this? I think these patients have greater needs and suffer from poorer health due to poverty, lack of access to medical care, and racial and cultural disparities in provision of medical care.  I am not a very religiously-observant Jew, but I have been heavily influenced by the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, a Hebrew phrase meaning "perfection of the world," which is a challenge for all of us.

 

Describe your experience working at Siloam: I've always enjoyed my experience working at Siloam, a clinic which is organized with all the proper objectives.  At my Friday morning clinics I especially enjoy my discussions with Drs. Frank Freemon and Arville Wheeler and with the chaplain, my friend Doug Mann.

 

As a physician, what challenge would you like to leave for the next generation of providers? When I graduated from medical school in 1961, I chose medicine because I liked caring for sick people and appreciated the opportunity to apply the art and science of medicine to their care.  Many of my classmates and subsequent colleagues have had similar feelings. From what I see of the next generation of physicians, most feel the same way, especially those who volunteer at Siloam.  With the progress I have observed over the past 50 years, the next generation has an even greater opportunity to succeed in these efforts.