Selected Podcast
A Conversation with Dr. Tim Graham, Chief Medical Officer at Mount Carmel St. Ann's
Tim Graham, Chief Medical Officer at Mount Carmel St. Ann's, leads a reflective discussion on how COVID-19 has affected his ministry.
Featuring:
Tim Graham, MD, ABFM, MHPE
Tim Graham, MD, ABFM, MHPE is Chief Medical Officer, Mount Carmel St. Ann's. Transcription:
Dr. Sean Lansing (Host): Hello. My name is Dr. Sean Lansing and I serve Trinity Health as the Mission Leader for Mount Carmel Health System. On our podcast today, is Dr. Timothy Graham. Dr. Graham comes to us from Mount Carmel, St. Ann's, where he currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer. Welcome to the podcast Dr. Graham.
Timothy Graham, MD, ABFM, MHPE (Guest): Thanks, John. It's great to be here.
Host: Before we dive in, could you share with our listeners a little of your professional journey? What got you to St. Ann's as the Chief Medical Officer?
Dr. Graham: Oh, sure. So, I've actually been at Mount Carmel, St. Ann's for about a decade. I originally was in Graduate Medical Education as part of the Family Medicine Residency Program here at Mount Carmel, St Ann's. And moved up into the Program Director Position. At which time, I also served as the Department Chair for Family Medicine at Mount Carmel, St. Ann's, as well. From there, when the opportunity actually come into the Chief Medical officer Position, kind of opened up, with my work that I had been doing as Department Chair and my interest in leadership, I, thought that it was a wonderful opportunity to be able to serve the, serve the ministry in a different way.
So, I was very excited for the opportunity to come into this position and currently serve as Chief Medical Officer of Mount Carmel, St Ann's and Mount Carmel, New Albany here locally.
Host: Wonderful. That's great. That's great. And you've been here for a long time and been a part of all the great work we've been doing in Columbus. That's awesome.
Dr. Graham: Yeah. is my home.
Host: Absolutely. For more than a year now, all of us have been living through the challenging time of coping with the global pandemic caused by COVID-19. And not only that, we've had this unbelievable civil unrest, that's really gripped our country in the last several, several months. Can you share a story about during this last 12, 18 months, a story that about your experience, that has really had an impact on you?
Dr. Graham: Yeah, I sure can. So, something that actually really sticks with me about our time through this pandemic, was really actually at the onset of the pandemic when we had our first patients show up within Columbus and within Mount Carmel. The response that we ended up actually seeing from, on all from all aspects of our ministry, at the time that the pandemic began, I actually was, still in my Family Medicine Program, Director Position, and as Department Chair, I was also intimately tied to what we were doing at the system level with regard to our response as this, this new threat really emerged. What amazed me is that within the course of days, we really were able to function as one cohesive team and really redesign how we delivered healthcare to all of our patients and how we supported and protected each other within, within our ministry. We went from seeing patients in an ambulatory center where we had a busy schedules every day, to transitioning to Tele-Health and being able to still care for our patients remotely. We redesigned how our hospital actually had our patients distributed, so that our patients who had, were diagnosed with COVID and actually came in with COVID, were kept in one area and were able to be cared for in one area, by a set of providers who stepped up boldly to say that they were going to be the ones taking care of those patients. We had an amazing relationship and still have an amazing relationship with our hospitalist group here at Mount Carmel, St. Ann's who led the charge and said that they were going to be the frontline providers for our for our patients who were diagnosed with COVID.
Our nursing staff,our infectious disease doctors, all of our team members actually stepped up bravely, at a point where we really didn't honestly know enough about transmission yet,and really had very limited ability to treat COVID when individuals contracted it. And, clearly put the patient first.
It was, it was humbling. It made me proud to be part of this system. One of the things that made me incredibly proud was also seeing that it, the focus, even though the focus was heavily on COVID, that we did not lose sight of the other patients who have entrusted their health care to our hands. And that we looked at unique ways to be able to make sure that we could safely deliver care to those patients and make sure that their chronic health needs were also still being met.
Host: Yeah. I remember that time when we didn't know, we barely knew anything about COVID-19 and so many people just stepped up.
It really speaks to our core value of integrity. You know, this is who we always say we are, right. We say that we care about patients. We want to put patients first. We care about our communities. And in that moment, when we were all scared, we stepped up and we, you know, we were faithful to who, who we said we were going to be to our community.
, your story also reminded me of the level of communication that was required during everybody during that time and the commitment to people's safety.
Dr. Graham: Yes, there was. The communication was absolutely incredible. The daily updates and the number of individuals who were on daily and sometimes multiple times per day, calls about COVID, about our COVID numbers about the availability of our PPE. You know, who, and when we were stretched thin from a PPE perspective and trying to make sure that everybody very transparently was aware of what the situation was.
And that everybody played a part in coming up with solutions and making sure that we made the best use of the resources that we did have, communicated any new information that came out from you know, from the CDC from, from the governor. Anything that was going to impact our care delivery or the lives of our patients and our colleagues outside of here.
Host: Yeah. Powerful stuff. So, now we're kind of we're through the hard part. We knew a lot more about the disease than we did. Our systems. I think, I think as a system we're better than we were even before the pandemic. When you think about the challenges that we face moving forward what are your hopes and fears?
Dr. Graham: Well, my, my hopes are, that's a great question. My hopes are that we continue to kind of push forward and continue to deliver safe care. Really actually encourage our patients and our communities to be safe moving forward. Yes, we have vaccines available and we're making tremendous progress that way. And the numbers are coming down and we, we, it feels like we're really making progress, but one of the things, I guess that would be one of my fears would be letting our guard down too soon. I think that we have done a tremendous job as a community and as, as a health care system and really nationally as a healthcare system to be able to deal with something that has been unprecedented. If we have, if somebody had actually taught any of us that we would be dealing with a pandemic in our lifetimes, we would not have believed it. That seems like something that, you know, with our medical technology and, and, and the, the resources that we have available, that we would not be challenged with to the level that we've actually been challenged with it in this past year.
But I think that with our successes, we need to temper those with making sure that we remain safe. And, and so my hope is that we also have also learned from our experiences and or enter into a new and safer time within our healthcare systems.
Host: Hm. I think that's, yeah, I think that's, that's a powerful challenge for us, right. Is how will we as a not only a healthcare system, but as a community of people going to work to make and create healthier communities for everybody.
Dr. Graham: Absolutely.
Host: Yeah. Well, our time's coming to an end. And so I just want to thank you all for listening and a special thank you to you, Dr. Graham. Thanks for spending time with us, sharing your stories and giving us an appropriate challenge for us to think about the future.
Dr. Graham: I appreciate it, Sean. Thanks for the opportunity to come in and talk.
Host: It's always great to be with you. I'm your host, Sean Lansing until next time, be well.
Dr. Sean Lansing (Host): Hello. My name is Dr. Sean Lansing and I serve Trinity Health as the Mission Leader for Mount Carmel Health System. On our podcast today, is Dr. Timothy Graham. Dr. Graham comes to us from Mount Carmel, St. Ann's, where he currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer. Welcome to the podcast Dr. Graham.
Timothy Graham, MD, ABFM, MHPE (Guest): Thanks, John. It's great to be here.
Host: Before we dive in, could you share with our listeners a little of your professional journey? What got you to St. Ann's as the Chief Medical Officer?
Dr. Graham: Oh, sure. So, I've actually been at Mount Carmel, St. Ann's for about a decade. I originally was in Graduate Medical Education as part of the Family Medicine Residency Program here at Mount Carmel, St Ann's. And moved up into the Program Director Position. At which time, I also served as the Department Chair for Family Medicine at Mount Carmel, St. Ann's, as well. From there, when the opportunity actually come into the Chief Medical officer Position, kind of opened up, with my work that I had been doing as Department Chair and my interest in leadership, I, thought that it was a wonderful opportunity to be able to serve the, serve the ministry in a different way.
So, I was very excited for the opportunity to come into this position and currently serve as Chief Medical Officer of Mount Carmel, St Ann's and Mount Carmel, New Albany here locally.
Host: Wonderful. That's great. That's great. And you've been here for a long time and been a part of all the great work we've been doing in Columbus. That's awesome.
Dr. Graham: Yeah. is my home.
Host: Absolutely. For more than a year now, all of us have been living through the challenging time of coping with the global pandemic caused by COVID-19. And not only that, we've had this unbelievable civil unrest, that's really gripped our country in the last several, several months. Can you share a story about during this last 12, 18 months, a story that about your experience, that has really had an impact on you?
Dr. Graham: Yeah, I sure can. So, something that actually really sticks with me about our time through this pandemic, was really actually at the onset of the pandemic when we had our first patients show up within Columbus and within Mount Carmel. The response that we ended up actually seeing from, on all from all aspects of our ministry, at the time that the pandemic began, I actually was, still in my Family Medicine Program, Director Position, and as Department Chair, I was also intimately tied to what we were doing at the system level with regard to our response as this, this new threat really emerged. What amazed me is that within the course of days, we really were able to function as one cohesive team and really redesign how we delivered healthcare to all of our patients and how we supported and protected each other within, within our ministry. We went from seeing patients in an ambulatory center where we had a busy schedules every day, to transitioning to Tele-Health and being able to still care for our patients remotely. We redesigned how our hospital actually had our patients distributed, so that our patients who had, were diagnosed with COVID and actually came in with COVID, were kept in one area and were able to be cared for in one area, by a set of providers who stepped up boldly to say that they were going to be the ones taking care of those patients. We had an amazing relationship and still have an amazing relationship with our hospitalist group here at Mount Carmel, St. Ann's who led the charge and said that they were going to be the frontline providers for our for our patients who were diagnosed with COVID.
Our nursing staff,our infectious disease doctors, all of our team members actually stepped up bravely, at a point where we really didn't honestly know enough about transmission yet,and really had very limited ability to treat COVID when individuals contracted it. And, clearly put the patient first.
It was, it was humbling. It made me proud to be part of this system. One of the things that made me incredibly proud was also seeing that it, the focus, even though the focus was heavily on COVID, that we did not lose sight of the other patients who have entrusted their health care to our hands. And that we looked at unique ways to be able to make sure that we could safely deliver care to those patients and make sure that their chronic health needs were also still being met.
Host: Yeah. I remember that time when we didn't know, we barely knew anything about COVID-19 and so many people just stepped up.
It really speaks to our core value of integrity. You know, this is who we always say we are, right. We say that we care about patients. We want to put patients first. We care about our communities. And in that moment, when we were all scared, we stepped up and we, you know, we were faithful to who, who we said we were going to be to our community.
, your story also reminded me of the level of communication that was required during everybody during that time and the commitment to people's safety.
Dr. Graham: Yes, there was. The communication was absolutely incredible. The daily updates and the number of individuals who were on daily and sometimes multiple times per day, calls about COVID, about our COVID numbers about the availability of our PPE. You know, who, and when we were stretched thin from a PPE perspective and trying to make sure that everybody very transparently was aware of what the situation was.
And that everybody played a part in coming up with solutions and making sure that we made the best use of the resources that we did have, communicated any new information that came out from you know, from the CDC from, from the governor. Anything that was going to impact our care delivery or the lives of our patients and our colleagues outside of here.
Host: Yeah. Powerful stuff. So, now we're kind of we're through the hard part. We knew a lot more about the disease than we did. Our systems. I think, I think as a system we're better than we were even before the pandemic. When you think about the challenges that we face moving forward what are your hopes and fears?
Dr. Graham: Well, my, my hopes are, that's a great question. My hopes are that we continue to kind of push forward and continue to deliver safe care. Really actually encourage our patients and our communities to be safe moving forward. Yes, we have vaccines available and we're making tremendous progress that way. And the numbers are coming down and we, we, it feels like we're really making progress, but one of the things, I guess that would be one of my fears would be letting our guard down too soon. I think that we have done a tremendous job as a community and as, as a health care system and really nationally as a healthcare system to be able to deal with something that has been unprecedented. If we have, if somebody had actually taught any of us that we would be dealing with a pandemic in our lifetimes, we would not have believed it. That seems like something that, you know, with our medical technology and, and, and the, the resources that we have available, that we would not be challenged with to the level that we've actually been challenged with it in this past year.
But I think that with our successes, we need to temper those with making sure that we remain safe. And, and so my hope is that we also have also learned from our experiences and or enter into a new and safer time within our healthcare systems.
Host: Hm. I think that's, yeah, I think that's, that's a powerful challenge for us, right. Is how will we as a not only a healthcare system, but as a community of people going to work to make and create healthier communities for everybody.
Dr. Graham: Absolutely.
Host: Yeah. Well, our time's coming to an end. And so I just want to thank you all for listening and a special thank you to you, Dr. Graham. Thanks for spending time with us, sharing your stories and giving us an appropriate challenge for us to think about the future.
Dr. Graham: I appreciate it, Sean. Thanks for the opportunity to come in and talk.
Host: It's always great to be with you. I'm your host, Sean Lansing until next time, be well.