Melvina McCabe
Geriatric
Physician
Melvina
McCabe, Navajo, MD, juggles many important
responsibilities including caring for aging patients,
teaching, doing research, directing a geriatric
education center, and serving in national leadership
roles.
Physician
As a geriatric
physician, McCabe takes care of elders in the University of
New Mexico Hospitals’ Senior Health Clinic. She also cares
for elders who are in the hospital. McCabe says, “One of
the joys of caring for our elders is the wonderful
individuals whom I have the privilege of serving. Their
life stories are intriguing, eye opening, emotional, and
most of all educational. We health care providers gain so
much when we get to know our patients as individuals, not
simply as someone with diabetes or heart disease.
“The biggest challenge in serving geriatric patients is the
wide spectrum of clinical presentations that can occur for
a specific disorder. For example, an elder patient with
acute coronary syndrome may not present with chest pain;
the only symptom might be confusion. This is one of the
many reasons I love working in geriatrics. It is like
detective work and one must always be aware of the
diagnostic possibilities.
“Another challenge for me specifically is making sure that
I do not put my beliefs as a Navajo person on an elder who
is non-Indian. For example, in the Navajo way we address
this population as elders, which is a respectful
connotation. I remember an interaction with a non-Indian in
which I addressed the person as an elder. This person was
very upset with me and stated that she was not an elder,
but a senior citizen.”
Educator
As a professor
in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the
University of New Mexico, McCabe teaches medical students,
residents, and geriatric fellows. She says, “I serve as an
attending [supervising teacher] in clinic and hospital
settings. Learners see the patients, present to the
attending, and we then go over the issues and management
plans. Being a good educator is a challenge and probably
one of the more important things that anyone in the
academic setting does. I do not always attain the level of
a good educator, but I strive for this, as I do with
anything that I do.”
As a professor McCabe has engaged in research around such
issues as Hantavirus, alcohol abuse, diabetes, and
geriatric education.
Directing a Geriatric Education Center
For more than a
decade McCabe has championed American Indian elders by
serving as Director of the New Mexico Geriatric Education
Center at the
University of New Mexico (NMGEC). Under her guidance,
the programs at the Center are designed to enhance the
ability of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social
workers and other health care professionals to deliver
geriatric and culturally-appropriate care.
“While we provide geriatric educational offerings to all
health care providers, our focus is on health care
providers serving American Indians,” says McCabe. “To
assist us with this, we have a Council of Elders who serve
the NMGEC in reviewing our curriculum, activities, and
videos to assure that they contain appropriate cultural
content. The Council is made up of 10 elders from the
various tribes and pueblos in New Mexico.
McCabe not only directs but also teaches in the Center’s
Summer Geriatric Institute, in the interdisciplinary
geriatric certificate program and in periodic workshops
that focus on such topics as dementia and depression.
The Center also supports a Senior Mentor Program for
medical, physician assistant, and nursing students.
Students are paired with elder mentors who are in good
health and/or have learned to manage their chronic health
problems. The goals of the program include dispelling myths
and stereotypes surrounding the aging process, helping
students learn more about seniors’ health concerns, and
improving students’ communication skills.
National Leader
As the
2009-2010 President of the Association of American Indian
Physicians (AAIP),
McCabe’s responsibilities included helping to prepare
for the AAIP’s annual meeting and national health
conference, which took place on the Santa Ana Indian
Reservation near Albuquerque. From 2000 to 2001 McCabe
also served as President of the AAIP. In 1999 and in
2003, in recognition of the many contributions McCabe
had already made, the AAIP named her “Physician of the
Year”.
McCabe is a grant reviewer for the Alzheimer's Association.
She served as a member both of the Minority Affairs
Consortium of the American Medical Association and the
National Institutes of Health’s National Advisory Council
on Minority Health and Health Disparities. She is also a
member of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
In addition, McCabe was a Presidential appointee to the
bipartisan advisory committee to the White House Conference
on Aging 2006. Further, New Mexico’s Governor Bill
Richardson chose her as a member of the Health Policy
Committee.
In 2002 McCabe received the Stoklos Visiting Professorship
Award for her promotion of integrated medicine (orthodox
and Navajo) from the University of Arizona Health Sciences
Center.
Journey
Even as a
child, Melvina McCabe knew she would someday be a
physician. Her role model was a Navajo elder, Christine
Whipple, whom she later met when she married Whipple’s
grandson. At the turn of the last century, Whipple left the
Navajo reservation to train as a nurse. She worked in a
hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan from 1910 to 1919. When
she returned home to the reservation, she worked as a nurse
among the Navajo, serving as a midwife and physician's
assistant, performing minor surgery and setting broken
bones. “Grandma Whipple was a remarkable woman,” says
McCabe. ”She never drove in her life, and yet she taught
others to drive. Her ‘guiding light’ provided direction for
many lives, not only within the family, but also within the
community.
After completing her undergraduate work at the University
of New Mexico (UNM) in 1980, McCabe began her own training
for a life in medicine. She graduated from the medical
school at the university in 1984 and then completed a
family medicine residency and a geriatric fellowship at the
UNM. “My career choice in geriatrics, I believe, had a lot
to do with my culture,” reflects McCabe. “We are taught to
respect and care for our elders. I saw geriatrics as an
extension of this.
“I joined the faculty at the UNM School of Medicine in the
Department of Family and Community Medicine in 1989. I
thought long and hard about where I wanted to serve. I felt
that I could best serve my people in academics where I
would be able to help American Indian and Alaska Native
students who want to pursue a career in medicine; teach
about the importance of knowing other cultures and how
culture might impact the delivery of care; and represent my
Indian people and the elders at a national level. I hope
that I have done this.”
Indeed, Dr. McCabe is doing a wonderful job of meeting her
goals!