September 2023

9/15: Improving Hospital Care for Patients with Opioid Use Disorder

Brett Bell, MD
Family Medicine Residency of Western MT
Missoula, MT

Brett Bell, MD is a faculty physician at the Family Medicine Residency of Western Montana where she oversees the curriculum for Addiction Medicine in addition to teaching on the inpatient hospital service. She graduated from University of Washington School of Medicine and completed residency training at Swedish Cherry Hill Family Medicine Residency. She is board certified in Addiction Medicine and family medicine.

 

9/22: Topic-ACE Transformation and Capacity

Krista Goldstine-Cole, PhD & Siwen Minero, PhD
University of MT
Missoula, MT

 

9/29: Trauma-Informed Care: An Overview for Health Care Providers

Cecilia Weeks, MD
Family Medicine Residency of Western MT
Missoula, MT

Dr. Cecilia Weeks is a 3rd year resident at the Family Medicine Residency of Western Montana. She attended medical school at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where she helped create a Trauma-Informed Care elective. After medical school, she taught sexual education in Austin, Texas. During residency, she has participated in the full spectrum reproductive health track.

 

 

October 2023

10/6: Hypnosis and the Placebo Effect. Using Non-deceptive Placebo to Facilitate Healing

 Patrick Marsolek
Inner Workings Resources
Missoula, MT
https://www.innerworkingsresources.com/
 

Patrick Marsolek is an author, teacher, facilitator, and director of Inner Workings Resources. Patrick writes, researches and facilitates on a wide variety consciousness and self-awareness topics. He has had a clinical hypnotherapy practice since 1998 and teaches Self-hypnosis classes. He facilitates and teaches Nonviolent Communication to individuals, businesses and organizations. He volunteers for the Community Dispute Resolution Center as a mediator for the Missoula courts. He also dances and teaches Argentine Tango throughout the Northwest.

 

10/13: Topic-IV to PO Options for Antibiotics

Zachary Van Dyke, PharmD
John M Voller, PharmD
St Patrick Hospital
Missoula, MT

Zach Van Dyke, PharmD and Jack Voller, PharmD are both PGY1 pharmacy residents at Saint Patrick Hospital. Zach graduated from Creighton University and Jack graduated from University of Iowa.

 

10/20: TBA

Rebecca Sharar, MD
Family Medicine Residency of Western MT
Missoula, MT

 

10/27: Recovery Programs and Policies for  A Vulnerable Population

Christie Farmer
Blackfeet Community College

Christie Farmer is a member of the Blackfeet Nation currently employed at the Blackfeet Community College as a Human Resource Assistant.  She has a BSW degree in Social Work from the University of Montana School of Social Work.  Plus, in 2021 she graduated with AA degree in Social work and Addiction Studies. During that time, she had an internship with the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council Epidemiology under the Public Health Workforce Expansion in Indian Country. Her main focus is addiction services being implemented for the Blackfeet Reservation.

Presentation abstract: In tribal communities, there is profound addiction and substance abuse at an alarming rate. The consequences of this are shown by the psychological damage and trauma that is inflicted on the person and their families. I am here to lead by example in the hopes that others will make the choice to change.

November 2023

11/3: Spiritual Care and Community Care

Panel Members:

Greg Grallo, M.Sc, MDiv
https://foundationaldialogues.org/
St Patrick Hospital
Missoula, MT

Zara Renander (Big Sky Hospice Chaplain)

Courtney Arntzen (Community Chaplain)

James Waddel (Partner's IHC Hospice Chaplain)

Daniel Disch (Partner's IHC Hospice Chaplain)

 

11/10: NO PRESENTATION-Holiday

 

11/17: Climate Change and Health 

Jennifer Selland, MD
Family Medicine Residency of Western Montana
Missoula, MT

 

11/24: NO PRESENTATION-Holiday

December 2023

12/1: Outpatient Anorectal Diseases and Management

Charles Acher, MD
Providence Health & Services
Missoula, MT

 

12/8: All inflammation is Different or Is It?

Andrij Holian, PhD
University of MT
Missoula, MT 

Andrij Holian is the director of the Center for Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Montana. He received his PhD at Montana State University and was on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and the University of Texas Houston Health Science Center Medical School. The main focus of his research is to describe the mechanisms of inflammation in order to develop therapeutics since there are no effective treatments of chronic inflammation in any tissue. He is also developing STEM education materials for middle school children to encourage next generation of scientists. Contributing to the presentation will be Dr. Rebekah Kendall, a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Holian. 

The talk will provide an update on what we currently know about acute and chronic inflammation and how inflammation in different tissues is similar and different including key players and outcomes. Current information on how dietary factors, existing therapeutics, aging, and lifestyle can contribute to inflammation and/or exacerbate inflammation will be discussed.

 

12/15: State of Mind: theatre and public dialogue/listening campaign across Montana tackling stigmas and normalizing new strategies for care

Michael Rohd
University of MT
Missoula, MT

Sarah Butts, MSW

Michael is a theatre-maker, educator, process  designer, writer and facilitator. His research and  creative practice is focused on civic imagination.  He has a 30+ year history of projects across  sectors bringing cultural activity to the work  of public engagement, community planning  and cross-sector coalition building. In 1992 in  Washington DC, Michael co-founded Hope Is  Vital, an arts & public health program that, over  8 years, helped start up theatre-based public  engagement/HIV prevention coalitions in over 80  communities around the US. In 1999, Michael co founded Sojourn Theatre and served as artistic director for 20 years, co-creating & directing nearly 30 devised, often site-specific and participatory theatre works.  In 2012, he co-founded  the Center for Performance and Civic Practice,  a collective of nine artist/facilitators who work  with organizations and agencies around the  country on community research, transformational  process and system change. He is currently  Civic Collaborations Director for One Nation One  Project, a national arts/municipality/public health  project & research cohort in partnership with  National League of Cities and he is co-designer/ co-facilitator for Art-Train, a virtual national  technical assistance program in partnership with  Springboard for the Arts. He recently founded the Co-Lab for Civic  Imagination at the University of Montana, and  he is author of the book Theatre for Community,  Conflict and Dialogue (Heinemann Press). 

Sarah Butts (she/her) was born and raised in Bigfork, Montana. After living outside of the state for several years, she returned in 2020 to obtain her Master of Social Work from University of Montana. Sarah is currently the Producer of Community Partnerships for State of Mind, a touring theatre and public dialogue project about mental and behavioral health. She is also a clinical social work licensure candidate (SWLC), practicing at Meadowlark Counseling in Missoula.  Additionally, Sarah is a theatre artist and holds an MFA Directing from UC Irvine.  She has a passion for community responsive theatre and has written and directed several documentary theatre works addressing topics including mental health, public education, houselessness, and child loss & grief. In 2019 she worked in collaboration with Great Falls Public Schools to direct a documentary theatre project called Converge. The goal was to illuminate the challenges facing young people, families, and staff as a way to raise consciousness, foster public conversation, and mobilize community action.  In 2021, she was invited to bring the Converge project to Skyview High School in Billings. Sarah is an associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), and a member of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). 

 

12/22: NO PRESENTATION-Holiday Break

12/29: NO PRESENTATION-Holiday Break

January 2024

1/5: NO PRESENTATION-Holiday Break

1/12: Preparticipation Physical Evaluation (PPE) for Athletes in Primary Care

Travis Kinane, DO
Family Medicine Residency of Western Montana
Missoula, MT

 

1/19: Prescribing and Deprescribing in Older Adults

Madeline Ulmer, PharmD
William Ng, PharmD
St Patrick Hospital
Missoula MT

Madeline Ulmer is a postgraduate year one pharmacy resident at Providence St. Patrick Hospital. She earned her PharmD from the University of Montana. Madeline is passionate about patient care and serving the community that fostered her professional development.  

Will Ng is a pharmacy resident at Providence St. Patrick Hospital. He received his PharmD from the University of Missouri - Kansas City. 


 

1/26:  Implications of Historical and Interpersonal Trauma on the Current Mental Health of Indigenous People

Ann Douglas, PhD
University of MT
Missoula, MT

Dr. Ann Douglas has a PhD in clinical psychology. She is a proud enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation. She has worked in clinical settings as well as in academic settings. As a psychologist, Dr. Douglas has dedicated her career to working and advocating for Indigenous peoples. This has led her to collaborating and supporting individuals and communities with high levels of trauma and suicide. Currently, she is the director of Riverwalk Crisis Center in Missoula, Montana, which is the second mental health crisis receiving center in the state of Montana. 

 

February 2024

2/2: Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder in the Fentanyl Era

Sienna Foxton, DO
Family Medical Residency of Western MT
Missoula MT

Sienna Foxton is a 3rd year family medicine resident currently residing in Missoula, Montana. After residency she plans to move back to Yakima, WA to practice at a community health clinic. Her interests within family medicine include addiction medicine, OMT, health equity, and providing healthcare to underserved populations.

2/9: Best Practices for Gender-Affirming Care

Ariel Malan, MS
University of Utah

Ariel Malan (she/they), is a health equity consultant, community activist, and queer educator. She earned a Master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from University of Utah in 2018. For over a decade, Ariel's passion and expertise has been working with LGBTQ+ communities through advocacy, education, and research. She currently serves as Outreach Network and Development Specialist for the University of Utah Transgender Health Program and led the development of Utah’s only multi-disciplinary gender health program. She is a 2021 Utah Business Living Color award honoree and has been featured on podcasts, panel events, and radio shows on the future of transgender health and LGBTQ+ advocacy.

2/16: An Update on Artificial Sweeteners

Laura Granlund, MS, RDN
University of MT

Laura Granlund is a Registered Dietitian (RD) and Licensed Nutritionist (LN) with a Master of Science in Dietetics. She has a large variety of experience in the dietetics field and has been providing ethical, evidenced based nutrition therapy since 2016. Laura works on campus at the University of Montana as the RDN for Dining Services. Laura teaches the ongoing Basic Human Nutrition Course on Campus and has taught courses on nutrition for longevity, food equity, and food additives. Laura’s special interests in dietetics include food systems sustainability, quality of the US food supply, and food additive regulation.

2/23:Cultural Humility and Competence


Marie King, B.A.,M.A.L. MDiv. she/her/hers
TMARIEKING.COM 

March 2024

3/1: Cultivating the Habit of Self-Compassion

Kathy Mangan, MS
Red Willow Learning Center
Missoula, MT

Kathy Mangan is the Founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit Red Willow Learning Center.  Her dedication to trauma resilience work stems from a personal survivor origin story which instilled in her a deep understanding of the process of developing resilience.  She has a Master’s of Science degree in Health and Wellness Program Development from the University of Montana

3/8: Changing Persistent Ways of Thinking to Change Persistent Pain


Mari Hodges, MScMed (Pain Mgmt), TPS, M.AmSAT
DiscoverEase in Movement
Missoula, MT 

Mari holds a Master in Science in Medicine in Pain Management from the University of Sydney and a Therapeutic Pain Specialist certificate from Purdue University/Evidence in Motion. She is a pain educator, pain coach, certified Alexander Technique teacher and director of DiscoverEase in Movement (www.discoverease.how). She is also a person with a lived experience of persistent pain. She runs the PainSavvy Walk & Talk community program promoting pain education and evidence-based self-management to engage individuals actively in their own management of and recovery from pain.

 3/15: Statewide Efforts American Indian Healthcare Improvement

Drew Babcock, MS
Family Medicine Residency of Western MT
Missoula, MT

 

3/22: Healthcare in a time of Increasing Homelessness (and what we can do about it) 

Kara Francis, MD
Family Medicine Residency of Western MT

Kara is a third-year family resident at the Family Medicine Residency of Western Montana. She was born and raised in Montana and attended University of Washington School of Medicine. She elected to pursue family medicine as an avenue to both provide comprehensive care for underserved populations and advocate for a more equitable system. With residency graduation fast approaching, she is looking forward to staying in the state, but will be relocating to Browning to work for the Indian Health Service.

 

3/29: Dispelling the Myths of Human Trafficking

David W. Wahl, Ph.D., ABS
McMurry University 
Abilene, TX

David Wahl is an assistant professor of sociology and criminology at McMurry University and a board-certified sexologist. As a professor and a researcher, Dr. Wahl’s work focuses on issues of sex, gender, sexuality, sexual violence, human trafficking, and sex work. A forthcoming book explores sex trafficking in the adult film industry. 

April 2024

4/5: Beyond the Pill Box: Using Integrative Medicine to Manage Chronic Illness

 Alec Kerins, MD
Family Medicine Residency of Western MT
Missoula, MT

Alec is a third-year family medicine resident at the Family Medicine Residency of Western Montana. He was born and raised in Helena and attended medical school at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. As a former public school educator, Alec has seen first-hand the impact social determinants of health have on the ability of his students to succeed, and thus sees the value and understanding all aspects of his patients in order to provide comprehensive care.  Alec has a keen interest in rural health and will be relocating to Sheridan, Montana upon completion of residency to provide care for individuals in and around the Ruby Valley.

 

4/12:  Engaging Primary Care Providers in Survivorship and Team-based Care of Cancer Patients

Jack Hensold, MD
Bozeman Health
Bozeman, MT 

Dr. Hensold received his MD in 1978 from Rush Medical College followed by an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Wisconsin. Training in Hematology and Oncology was received at Harvard Medical School and the Beth Israel Hospital, Boston with post-doctoral training at the Center for Cancer Research, MIT. He was an Associate Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine where he ran an NIH, VA and ACS-funded laboratory investigating post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in differentiating leukemic cells. At CWRU he was the director of the Hematology and Oncology fellowship program. Beginning in 2004 he was a practicing Hematologist and Oncologist at Bozeman Health Cancer Center and was the lead physician in the Cancer Center from 2013-2020. He is currently Medical Director for Regional Outreach at Bozeman Health and is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Clinical Practice Committee and chair of the ASCO Rural Health Access in Montana task force.

 

 

4/19: Keeping Well-Being Relevant in the Here and Now

Tim Cunningham, RN, DrPH
 www.timcunninghamrn.com 

Tim Cunningham, RN, is former Co-Chief Well-Being Officer at Emory Healthcare and the Woodruff Health Sciences Center at Emory University and is faculty at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory. He collaborates with interprofessional teams to support structural and systemic well-being change for healthcare teams and professionals, university staff and faculty, researchers, learners, and community members. His clinical background is emergency nursing and his publications, including two books on nurse well-being and a children’s book on resilience, discuss ways as to how we can practice compassion in the most challenging of settings.

Cunningham’s first passion was in the performing arts—theatre, clown, dance and acrobatics. He worked as an actor for nearly a decade in various regional theatres in the U.S. and internationally. It was because of those experiences he began work with Clowns Without Borders in 2003. A small non-profit organization, Clowns Without Borders sends professional artists into war zones, refugee camps and other zones of crisis with the simple mission of catalyzing laughter and playfulness. Tim has performed in more than 20 countries with the clowns, he has served as Executive Director of Clowns Without Borders and now serves as Board President.  It was working in a pediatric ward in pre-earthquake Haiti that inspired Tim to study nursing.

He graduated from the University of Virginia School of Nursing in 2009 and then worked an emergency/trauma nurse at the UVA Health, Children’s National Medical Center and New York Presbyterian, Cornell. Tim completed his Doctorate of Public Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University in 2016.

 

4/26: Eating Disorder Management Across Medical Settings

Caitlin Martin-Wagar, PhD
University of MT
Missoula, MT

Caitlin Martin-Wagar, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Montana. She is also a licensed psychologist in private practice treating eating disorders and trauma-related difficulties across the lifespan. Her research examines weight stigma and seeks to improve eating disorder treatments and access to care. She holds leadership positions internationally with the Academy of Eating Disorders and is on the board of several Western Montana community agencies. In addition, her work aims to reduce the research-practice gap, with the goal of improving eating disorder access to care and treatment effectiveness, especially among underrepresented groups and within rural regions.

May 2024

5/3: Street Design and Pedestrian Safety: Public Health Implications of the Built Environment

Brett Bell, MD
Family Medicine Residency of Western MT
Missoula, MT

Brett Bell, MD is a faculty physician at the Family Medicine Residency of Western Montana where she oversees the curriculum for Addiction Medicine in addition to teaching on the inpatient hospital service. She graduated from University of Washington School of Medicine and completed residency training at Swedish Cherry Hill Family Medicine Residency. She is board certified in Addiction Medicine and family medicine.

 

5/10: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: An overview of Pathogenesis, Detection, and Management 

Rebecca Belsom, MD
Western MT Clinic
Missoula, MT 

Rebecca grew up in Louisiana.  She attended the College of Charleston in South Carolina with a major in Biology, then medical school at LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, LA.  She completed an internal medicine residency at the LSU Earl K. Long Hospital in Baton Rouge, LA and a rheumatology fellowship at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, Alabama.  Rebecca has been in clinical practice for 12 years and living in Missoula, MT with her spouse and 3 kids. Her current practice is at the Western Montana Clinic