Medical educator and national leader in academic medicine Dr. Wayne Riley will be the keynote speaker for the 20th Anniversary Frank Bryant Jr. MD, Memorial Distinguished Lecture on Thursday, April 6, from 12 pm to 1 pm at Holly Auditorium. 

In June of 2021 – alongside Drs. Anthony Fauci and Eric Topol – Dr. Riley was awarded the National Medical Humanism Medal by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation for his impactful leadership during the pandemic and passionate advocacy towards addressing health disparities and anti-racism in medicine and healthcare.

A champion for healthcare equity, Dr. Riley will share his personal and professional experiences in his discussion “Our Quest for Health Equity” by focusing on prejudice in the medical field. This free, in-person event will occur at the Holly Auditorium at 7703 Floyd Curl Drive (UT Medical Center).

“Dr. Riley is truly a distinguished medical educator, a respected national leader in academic medicine, and a champion for health care equity,” said Dr. Ruth Berggren, head of the Center for Humanities and Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

In 2002, the Texas Medical Foundation funded a lecture series to honor Dr. Frank Bryant Jr. He is remembered as a man who overcame adversity yet would never accuse anyone else of being unfair. Dr. Bryant graduated from UTMB in one of the first classes to admit Black students; he became a respected physician, a loving family man, and an advocate for the medically underserved in East San Antonio. Dr. Bryant was the co-founder, first medical director of the Ella Austin Health Clinic, and co-developer of the East San Antonio Medical Center. He served as the first African American President of the Bexar County Medical Society and the first President of the C.A. Whittier Medical Society.

Dr. Riley was appointed by the Board of Trustees of The State University of New York (SUNY) as the 17th President of SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in 2017. Dr. Riley is an academic primary care general internist with over 25 years of progressively senior executive-level management, policy, and leadership experience. 

Before Dr. Riley’s appointment at Downstate, he served as a clinical professor of Medicine and adjunct professor of Health Policy at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and as an adjunct professor of Management at Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management. Before his role at Vanderbilt, from 2007-2013, Dr. Riley served with distinction as the 10th president, chief executive officer, and professor of Medicine at Meharry Medical College.

Dr. Riley earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from the Morehouse School of Medicine, a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology with a concentration in medical anthropology from Yale University, and a Master of Public Health degree in health systems management from the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He also earned a Master of Business Administration from Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. 

“I look forward to welcoming all of you to our campus to hear Dr. Riley’s address!” said  Dr. Ruth Berggren. “I hope that each of you will consider inviting members of the community, including youth, students, community leaders, and health professionals, to learn from his experiences and  to be inspired.”

#HeartMonth is just getting started! The American Heart Association is asking people to “Go Red for Women” to raise awareness about cardiovascular disease and help save lives. Why? Because losing even one woman to cardiovascular disease is too many. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women, killing one woman about every 80 seconds. Women who suffer from cardiac arrest outside of a hospital are less likely to receive CPR from bystanders.

National Wear Red Day was officially on Feb. 3, but the American Heart Association is hoping people wear red all month and learn the importance of CPR. The Association recently partnered with Damar Hamlin of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills for the #3forHeart CPR Challenge to encourage people to learn this life-saving practice. 

Heart disease and stroke disproportionately impact Black women. Importantly, Black women are less likely than white women to be aware that heart disease is the leading cause of death. Diabetes, smoking, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, physical inactivity, obesity, and a family history of heart disease are all greatly prevalent among Black women and are major risk factors for heart disease and stroke. What’s more, Black women have almost two times the risk of stroke than white women and are more likely to die at an earlier age when compared to women of other ethnicities.

Here are a few unsettling stats:

• Cardiovascular diseases kill more than 50,000 Black women annually. Stroke is a leading cause of death among Black women.
• Among Black women ages 20 and older, nearly 59% have cardiovascular disease.
• Only 39% of Black women are aware that chest pain can be a sign of a heart attack; only 33% recognize that pain spreading to the shoulder, neck, or arms is another potential heart attack sign.
• Among Black women ages 20 years and older, nearly 58% have high blood pressure, and only around 20% of those women have their blood pressure under control.

Risk Factors That Can Be Managed:

You can control or treat these risk factors with lifestyle changes and your healthcare provider’s help:

• High blood pressure
• Smoking
• High blood cholesterol
• Lack of regular activity
• Obesity or overweight
• Diabetes

Risk Factors You Can’t Control:

• Age
• Gender
• Heredity (family health history)
• Race
• Previous stroke or heart attack

Signs and Symptoms of Heart Attack:

If you have any of these signs, call 9-1-1 and get to a hospital immediately.

1. Uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain in the center of your chest. It lasts more than a few minutes or goes away and comes back.
2. Pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach.
3. Shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort.
4. Other signs include breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness.
5. As with men, women’s most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort.

What are the stroke warning signs?

• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm, or leg, especially on one side of the body
• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
• Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance o

Compassionate, nurturing, loyal, and kind were just many of the words spoken about Dr. Harmon Kelley at his funeral services on Feb. 1. He passed away on Jan. 26 from a heart attack at the age of 77.

Born in 1945 in Cameron, Texas, Dr. Kelley and his wife, Harriett, had a significant impact locally and nationwide. Dr. Kelley moved to San Antonio in the late 1970s during a time when the city had just a few African American doctors. In 1978, he founded Southeast OB-GYN Associates, P.A., where he practiced for 44 years, the past 20 years with Dr. Margaret Kelley, his daughter. Before that, Southeast San Antonio didn’t have a doctor in obstetrics-gynecology.

Over the years, the Kelleys’ interest in African American art grew and the couple founded the Harriett and Harmon Kelley Foundation for the Arts. A Texas Monthly article in 1996 said the Kelleys filled a void in the art world by increasing the value and influence of Black art, and museum curators to emissaries from foreign countries inquired about borrowing or buying from their collection.

Rich Aste, CEO/director of The McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, said thanks to Dr. Kelley, McNay leaned even further into its mission of engaging absolutely every member of its diverse community in the discovery and enjoyment of the visual arts.

“From his leadership role as a McNay Trustee and Emeritus Trustee to his key role in the search for the Museum’s first Latino director, he was a champion for change,” Aste said. “His legacy of inclusivity, growth, and love will inform our work for generations.”

In 1995, the Kelleys collection became the first private African American art collection ever exhibited by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Aaronetta and Dr. Joseph A. Pierce Jr. also advocates for African American art, said, “Harriet and Harmon meticulously built one of the finest collections of great art by African Americans in the country. They advanced the respect and visibility of these artists immeasurably.”

As an alumnus of Prairie View A&M University and U.S. Army veteran, Dr. Kelley’s commitment to his practice and profession was evident in his numerous awards, including lifetime achievement awards. There’s even a charter school named after him – the Dr. Harmon W. Kelley Elementary School in San Antonio. In 2006, he was awarded The Ashbel Smith Distinguished Alumni (ASDA) Award, the highest alum honor bestowed by the University of Texas Medical Branch School of Medicine Alumni Association. The award recognizes outstanding service to the medical profession and humanity. Also in 2011, he received the Bexar County Medical Society’s highest honor, the Golden Aesculapius Award, which recognized his lifetime of distinguished service as a Bexar County Medical Society member to patients and the medical profession. This honor is only given on occasion.

In 2011, Dr. Kelley received the Southside Chamber of Commerce Legends Award to honor his commitment and service to San Antonio’s Southside.

Dr. Kelley’s achievements were a testament to what his patients already knew about him. Dr. Margaret Kelley said at the funeral she was “blown away” by how efficient her father was as a physician. She said even with his deep, baritone voice, he knew how to provide calm and solace to a soon-to-be mom in the labor room.

Likewise, Dr. Kelley was proud of his two daughters. He would tell his patients to call (Margaret) Dr. Kelley “because she deserved to be treated with the same respect.” After all, they both had the same credentials.
His other daughter, Jennifer Kelley, tearfully spoke about how her father would shower her with steaks. She joked that “most girls love flowers; I love steak.”

She also talked about how she and her father shared a love of music from listening to Earth, Wind & Fire, the Isley Brothers, Prince, Teddy Pendergrass, and more.

“We loved to turn the music way up in the car so we could hear the music and the bass,” Jennifer Kelley said. And Dr. Harmon Kelley was also a self-appointed English teacher. Dr. Margaret Kelley said with some of his younger patients, her father would kindly correct their grammar.

“When they say they ‘hurted,” he would tell them ‘hurted’ was not a word and it’s better to say you are hurting badly,” Dr. Margaret Kelley said.

San Antonio Express-News Columnist Cary Clack said Dr. (Harmon) Kelley has two great legacies. One is medical in that you have a Black OB-GYN open his practice on the Southeast side of San Antonio, providing a critical need, and he never left, staying there for 44 years until his death. “The other legacy, of course, is what he and Harriett did to curate, promote, and preserve the work of Black artists,” Clack added. “That a Black couple from San Antonio amassed the collection of Black art that they did is amazing.”