Q&A with Dr. Earnestine Willis

Earnestine Willis, MD, MPH

Title: Kellner Professor in Pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Director, Center for the Advancement of Underserved Children
Years in Medical Practice:  31 years
MLP Affiliation: Families' Legal and Medical Partnership
How were you introduced to MLP?  By Dr. Barry Zuckerman

Q: Why are the benefits of medical-legal partnership for you and your colleagues at the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin?

A: We want to effectively advocate for low-income families and children.   After learning about the benefits of the medical-legal partnership as experienced in Boston, and recognizing that we’ve spent many decades working in this area with underserved populations, we realized we could do more effective and efficient job with this population if combine our efforts in the health care system together with lawyers to advocate on behalf of low-income families.   Doctors get access to detailed information from the families, but they don’t always have the social resources at their fingertips to ensure that parents maximize on the benefits they can get to support these families adequately.

Q: Are there particular patient stories that stick out in your mind as demonstrating the power of those partnerships?

A: One family we took care of had children who were continuously coming into the clinic because of bug bites. The bed bugs were determined to be in the carpet. The landlord refused to make the necessary repairs upon appeals from the mother.  The mother started to withhold her rent from her landlord, but that was just jeopardizing her situation and could have resulted in her being evicted from the apartment, not the impact that she wanted.

We referred this case to our partnering lawyers and this mother was directed to our Department of Neighborhood Services (DNS), after the lawyer provided explanations to her of her rights as a tenant and the landlord’s rights. The attorney assisted her in petitioning for an inspection of the apartment by the Department of Neighborhood Services.  The landlord was required to institute pest control of the apartment.   Lawyers and DNS worked with her to make sure that her rent was put into an account for the landlord once the repairs was made.  The landlord was given a deadline to make the corrections in her home, so that she did not have to relocate her family to a new place to live.

Q: When you’re working with younger doctors in training, what do you want them to understand about how health is determined?

A: I want them to recognize that health has broader factors to be considered by medical providers and those factors are essential to understand how they influence the family dynamics and health status of individuals.  This perspective is vital to be effective in treatment regiments for these families to act on and apply.   If there are hurdles in these families’ way, we have to help with finding those solutions or opening doors for these families.

I also want them to understand that pediatrician need to take the broadest snapshot of children in families, communities and schools.  What happens in a child’s education experience, their health experience?  Knowing the family just from what health condition they present with is a very narrow snapshot.   Doctors have to really try to understand that in the context of the family, family life and the safety of their neighborhoods need to be considered including knowing if those resources are assets or can contribute to the disease burden of each child in our care.