A CONVERSATION WITH KATE DIAZ VICKERY, MD, MSc
We asked Minnesota Academy of Family Physicians (MAFP) member Kate Diaz Vickery, MD, MSc, to share about how receiving an MAFP Foundation Research Grant helped shape her career path in community-engaged research.
Tell Us ABOUT THE GRANT YOU RECEIVED FROM THE MAFP FOUNDATION.
Vickery: When I was a resident (in 2009), the MAFP Foundation awarded me and Katie Guthrie, MD, funding for a research grant titled, “Healthy West 7th: A resident-neighborhood partnership to improve neighborhood health.”
This grant catalyzed ongoing work at the Allina Health United Family Medicine Residency to connect people and organizations around the residency clinic to the community-oriented primary care projects of residents. We conducted a needs assessment via focus groups, interviews and surveys with people who lived, worked or sought health care in the neighborhood.
We talked to 183 people, which led to:
- Clarity about the needs and assets of the neighborhood.
- Increased collaborations between resident physicians and people from the neighborhood.
- A resolution honoring the Healthy West 7th initiative from the Minnesota House of Representatives (in 2012).
HOW DID THE MAFP FOUNDATION GRANT INFLUENCE YOUR CAREER PATH?
Vickery: It was a key first step for me to a career blending clinical family medicine with community-engaged research. The grant, mentorship and the presentations we shared about it with local, national and international audiences (at the North American Primary Care Research Group conferences) helped me secure a spot in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars fellowship program. The fellowship led to my faculty role at Hennepin Healthcare, where I’ve now had more than 20 grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Commonwealth Fund and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among others.
HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU WANTED TO BE A PHYSICIAN RESEARCHER?
Vickery: I decided I wanted to be a physician researcher when I saw family medicine researchers and learned about community-engaged research to improve health equity. Suddenly, research became a place where I could partner with and lift up the voices of the patients and communities I served. Research became an outlet for my creativity and a place to redesign so many of the broken parts of our health care and public health system. Research also offered the flexibility I needed—and wanted—to raise a family while growing my career.
ANY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN PURSUING RESEARCH?
Vickery: Follow your passion and interests. Pursue the ideas that keep you up at night or that stick with you.
Partner with people with lived experience of the topics you want to study. These partnerships can guide you to creative solutions.
Build a network of mentors and supporters. One mentor should be someone who does research or measurement. Other mentors may provide you with career or life advice, connect you to patients or partners and/or share their ideas. It really is a team effort.
Find ways to collaborate. There’s a growing network of family medicine researchers and a huge number of public health, social science and other scholars who likely share your interests. The quickest way to learn is to do a project together!
Consider a fellowship for advanced training, if you think research will be something you will focus on. Just like clinical care, research skills take time and guidance to develop correctly.
CAN YOU SHARE ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE DOING NOW?
Vickery: I work in the Health, Homelessness, and Criminal Justice Lab at Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute. I co-founded the lab with Tyler Winkelman, MD, MSc, a med-peds colleague with expertise in people who have interacted with the justice system.
I focus on the health needs of people experiencing homelessness in both my research and my clinical work with Hennepin County Health Care for the Homeless.
The Quorum for Community Engaged Wellness Research guides our research from their perspectives as people with lived experience of homelessness and chronic disease. Together, we’re building wellness coaching programs for people who have experienced homelessness—focused first on diabetes, but now expanding to support cardiometabolic health.
Apply for an MAFP Foundation Grant
Grant categories:
- Family medicine research
- Clinical innovations improving patient care
- Clinic-community partnerships/outreach
- Healthcare policy/family medicine advocacy
Research and/or Innovation Grants are open to MAFP resident and medical student members.
Application deadlines: April 1 and October 1 (annually)
mafp.org/apply
