This Chief Medical Officer of Community Care of West Virginia is making a difference in rural health.
As we read in the news and see around us every day, West Virginia has serious health challenges—diabetes and obesity, smoking, and opioid addiction among them. Helping those who are suffering takes the hands-on, day-to-day work of thousands of dedicated health care practitioners across the state.
But improving the health of West Virginians as a whole requires systemic change. That’s why, this year, we’re honoring six West Virginia health care professionals. As leaders of the largest industry in the state, they are fundamentally changing the ways we think about, practice, and pay for health care. They are our 2023 Changemakers of Care.
This Chief Medical Officer of Community Care of West Virginia is making a difference in rural health.
Dr. Kimberly Becher didn’t know much about the medical profession when she entered medical school.
She only knew she wanted to live and practice medicine in rural West Virginia—and she got her wish. The Marshall graduate worked in Clay County for many years, first as a family physician and currently as chief medical officer for Community Care of West Virginia.
Her practice has varied over the years. Sometimes it looked like office hours; sometimes like a home visit in a remote hollow. No matter the task, though, Becher grew to love the community and her patients. Likewise, they knew and trusted her with their care, and the relationship was a fulfilling one.
“You can make a huge impact in Boston, for example, but when you’re in a smaller community, it’s easier to see impact,” Becher says. “You’re touching the same number of lives in one place versus another. But it is easier to reassess what you’re doing, because you can see if that needle is moving. You get a community health perspective.”
The pandemic, however, took its toll. Although she continued to treat patients, she found that her advice regarding the COVID-19 vaccine was not often heeded. Some patients viewed her with suspicion. After working hard to earn her community’s trust for so many years, the pushback devastated her. In response, Becher worked harder. She saw more patients, pushed herself further. As the stress mounted and the pandemic wore on, Becher moved from exhaustion to burnout.
That burnout then turned to heartbreak—quite literally—when Becher was admitted to the ICU with “Broken Heart Syndrome.” A result of extreme stress, the condition caused damage to her heart that continues to linger. She returned to work after a month, only to realize she’d done so too soon.
As she navigated her health challenge, she realized the injury she’d suffered was a result of the anger and frustration that grew during her long days and months of COVID-19 care. “I started to think about how I felt going in and out of exam rooms and how I talked to people,” Becher says. “I know patients could tell that something had changed, that my tone was probably different. I felt like everything was hurting me so deeply that I had to wall everybody off. I shut down my compassion intake.”
She believed, at the time, that she could find more compassion if she drove herself harder, but her efforts had the opposite effect. As her heart began to recover, Becher gave herself permission to care for herself as she does her patients. In so doing, she discovered that compassion in health care professionals comes from a place not of extremes, but of balance.
“Patient care is a heavy lift,” she says. “Not just if you’re a doctor or a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant. You can be the phlebotomist, you can be the person cleaning the exam rooms. The weight of the things that people bring to you is heavy, and you take all of that home with you.”
Now, she approaches health care differently, with a focus on self-care and advocacy for those she works with so they, in turn, can care for patients to the best of their ability.
According to Trish Collett, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Community Care of West Virginia, “Dr. Becher is a health care leader in West Virginia. Beyond serving as our chief medical officer, she directly provides the best possible health care to patients who may not otherwise receive treatment.” Clay County has no hospital, and many of the residents in the region would have limited health care options if not for physicians like Becher.
“It’s always going to be first and foremost about the quality of the care we’re providing and making sure every provider is really top notch, providing evidence-based medicine and a good experience for the patient,” Becher says. “But I feel like my primary goal is to make sure I am supporting every one of our health care providers, trying to think about it from their perspective, and trying to be their advocate. I want them to see their value.”
written by Laura Roberts
READ MORE ARTICLES FROM WV LIVING HEALTHY
READ ABOUT THER CHANGEMAKERS OF CARE
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