By Samantha Cart
West Virginia native Dr. Patrice Harris is taking the national stage in health care leadership this year as the first-ever African-American female president of the American Medical Association, the largest association of physicians and medical students in the U.S.
Dr. Patrice Harris. Photo by Derek White Photography.
“The duty of any first is to make sure there is a second.”
These words serve as a powerful motivator for Dr. Patrice Harris, president-elect of the American Medical Association (AMA), who will become the organization’s first African-American female president when she is inaugurated in June.
“Every president brings their own unique lens through which they view the work of the AMA, and I think that is important,” says Harris. “I hope I can be evidence and inspiration to young women, particularly young black women, that they can aspire to the ultimate leadership position in their profession no matter what profession they choose. I am very proud to be the first African-American female president of the AMA. It’s an honor and a privilege but also a great responsibility, and it will be my role to make sure there are more to come.”
A Strong Foundation
Harris is no stranger to paving her own way and going first. A native of Bluefield, WV, she was the first in her family to attend medical school and the only African-American member of her graduating class. She credits her Mountain State upbringing, her parents and both of her grandmothers for her self-confidence.
“It was great growing up in a small but strong community,” she says. “I had two very wise grandmothers. Together with my parents they instilled in me family values and a love of serving and caring for others. My mother taught middle school math and my father worked on the railroad, so I also learned the importance of hard work early in life. My parents taught me I could do anything I wanted, so I never doubted I could be a physician, but I never imagined that journey would lead me to become president of the AMA.”
After graduating from Bluefield High School, Harris attended West Virginia University (WVU) for undergraduate, graduate and medical school, where she received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and master’s degrees in counseling and psychology. It was during her third year of medical school that she fell in love with psychiatry.
“I was on my psychiatry rotation, and I fell in love with the variety and the challenge of the patients,” she recalls. “I have always been fascinated by the brain, and that fascination was ignited by the patients we were able to see and even more so by the ones we were able to help.”
A Life of Service
Harris completed her residency in child and adolescent psychiatry at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, the city she now calls home. She currently works in private practice, but the enduring theme of her career has been working with others to improve the lives of children. While she is trained to see patients of any age, she has focused on seeing children within the juvenile justice system and foster care over the course of her career.
“One of my inspirations to become a physician was Marcus Welby, the TV doctor,” says Harris. “He was a family physician, and what I liked about him was he not only took care of his patients inside the exam room, but he also cared for their lives and challenges outside the exam room. We know and appreciate today that the challenges, lives and conditions people live with and in are very important contributors to their health. I think the opportunity to make a difference is when you intervene with children early on. When you work to make children’s lives better, it leads to longer, healthier lives and healthier communities.”
Along with prior work as a health administrator, patient advocate and medical society lobbyist, Harris has made a name for herself and her mission in organized medicine by serving on the boards of the American Psychiatric Association and AMA; as president of the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association (GPPA); as a member of the Medical Association of Georgia’s council on legislation, committee on constitution and bylaws and membership task force; and as founding president of the Georgia Psychiatry Political Action Committee. Harris was a member of the governing council of the AMA Women Physicians Congress when the AMA board of trustees appointed her to its Council on Legislation in 2003. In 2010, she was elected council chair, and in 2011, she was elected to the board of trustees for the first time.
A Public Platform
Fast forward to today, and Harris is excitedly awaiting her inauguration as president of the AMA.
“The ultimate mission of the AMA is to promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health for everyone in this country, and that has been my lifelong goal as I’ve pursued my career as a physician,” she says. “As a psychiatrist, I want to make sure mental health and early childhood intervention are part of that conversation. I also want to amplify the issues around diversity and inclusion and the importance of women in medicine and women in leadership. All of these will be incorporated into the overall exciting work we are doing at the AMA focusing on pre-diabetes and high blood pressure, training the next generation of physicians and making sure the regulatory and administrative burdens that affect the medical community are addressed.”
Harris’ belief that what happens at home is just as important as vital signs inspires her involvement with medical and community organizations. She has been recognized for her commitment to her patients and the community in a variety of ways, including being selected as Psychiatrist of the Year by the GPPA in 2001 and inducted into the West Virginia University Academy of Distinguished Alumni in 2007.
“What I can do and what other physicians and health professionals can do in the exam room is just part of the matter,” she says. “Being a physician and being involved in organizations in the community and around the country offer the opportunity to elevate important issues and talk about policy. It’s important we have policies that support child health, ensure mothers have healthy pregnancies so they can have healthy babies and provide all children with access to health coverage and insurance so we can intervene early for any issues that may arise. For these reasons, I am so honored to have been involved in the AMA for so many years and now to be president-elect. It gives me a continued platform to make sure we have healthy individuals, healthy communities and a healthy nation.”
A Personal Stake
Another issue Harris is passionate about is physician-led efforts to address the opioid epidemic that has ravaged the nation and her home of Southern West Virginia.
In 2014, the AMA board of trustees convened an opioid task force made up of 26 representatives from state medical societies and national specialties to amplify the work that was already occurring in the physician community regarding the opioid epidemic. Harris has been a dedicated leader and member of the task force, traveling the country to speak at state and national meetings about policy recommendations.
“The goal of the opioid task force is to better coordinate and collaborate, identify potential partnerships and make specific policy recommendations,” she says.
Since 2014, the task force has proposed six recommendations for the medical community, including that all public and private payers should ensure access to medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder and remove administrative barriers to treatment such as prior authorization; policymakers and regulators should increase oversight and enforcement of parity laws for mental health and substance use disorders to ensure patients receive the care they need; and public and private payers must ensure patients have access to affordable, non-opioid pain care.
“We also spend a great deal of time talking about the stigma that faces those who have substance use disorder as well as those who suffer from chronic pain,” she says. “Identifying and eliminating stigma is one of our core recommendations.”
Harris believes any intervention or prevention efforts made must be multidisciplinary and include all the stakeholders, and she thinks local communities—including many in West Virginia—have been successful at this.
“No community is safe from this epidemic, but in West Virginia we have been hit particularly hard,” she says. “This is a complicated and complex issue, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. It’s not one specific solution—it’s a set of solutions. What I’ve seen West Virginia communities do well is get together with all the stakeholders—physicians, public health officials, law enforcement, schools and community organizations—to discuss the next steps. That is working well on the local level, but we need solutions at all levels.”
From a physician’s point of view, Harris also believes those who truly suffer from chronic pain have been unfairly stigmatized and must have access to care.
“We know we need to treat pain, and we want to make sure patients who need pain care get it,” she says. “We have seen and heard from both patients and physicians that some of the burdensome regulations and restrictions that have been placed on the number of pills and maximum dosages have negatively impacted patients with pain. I know programs in West Virginia and other states are looking at access to multimodal pain treatment, which is critical. Opioids are an important option to treat pain, but there are other evidence-based alternatives. However, if patients cannot get access to these because they don’t have insurance, their insurance doesn’t cover them or they can’t afford their co-pays, then they really don’t have access. There is no one-size-fits-all treatment for pain either.”
An International Stage
Although her medical career has taken her beyond the borders of her beloved home state, Harris’ connection to West Virginia remains strong. She currently serves on the board of directors for the WVU Foundation, and she comes home several times each year to visit her family, cheer on her teams at WVU and Bluefield High School football games and attend foundation meetings.
While Harris started her medical journey in Morgantown, her tenure as president-elect, president and immediate past president of the AMA will take her across the globe. “The AMA presidents have the wonderful opportunity to promote the work we do around the country and the world,” she says. “One of the great honors of this position is to represent the AMA at the World Medical Association (WMA) meetings, so I will have the opportunity to learn from physicians around the world and share learning, knowledge and expertise.”
In 2018, Harris attended the WMA meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland. In the future she will travel to Santiago, Chili, and Tbilisi, Georgia. She is grateful for the opportunity, but she’ll never forget her roots in Almost Heaven, West Virginia.
