Willie Lawrence Jr., MD, medical director for the Center For Better Health and Wellness at Benton Harbor, Mich.-based Corewell Health South, discovered his interest in science in fourth grade thanks to a public school community garden.
The interest grew in high school and college as he joined the premed track. In the summer after his freshman year at Cambridge, Mass.-based Harvard College, he worked in a pharmacology lab that studied cardiology drugs. He became interested in the physiology of the cardiovascular system. During his cardiology fellowship at Johns Hopkins, he discovered interventional cardiology. As he put it, "Interventional cardiology was way too sexy and enticing."
Dr. Lawrence was recently named Press Ganey's Physician of the Year. Here, he talks about the future of cardiology.
Question: What drew you to cardiology?
Dr. Willie Lawrence: My time at the lab was my first introduction to the field. I liked cardiology because it's a system where the pharmacology of treatment makes sense and the biology and physiology of intervention makes sense.
Q: What heart study, technology or innovation are you most excited about right now?
WL: New blood pressure technology could be a game changer. In some ways, it's fairly simple technology at this point in time, but I believe in its potential. There's Bluetooth technology that allows a patient to check blood pressure at their home and have that data immediately uploaded to a server so their provider can know their blood pressure at home. This home blood pressure is the best predictor of heart outcomes. As we learn how to best use telemedicine, we can better "meet people where they are" and potentially provide better care to more people.
During the pandemic we quickly discovered how poorly prepared we were to transition to telemedicine. There are significant racial disparities in blood pressure control, and these contributed to higher death rates for Blacks during the pandemic. This frontier of telemedicine is important. It certainly has its limitations. I'm a big believer in in-person care as the most effective way to impact folks' health. Yet, we have to figure out better ways to "meet people where they are." Technology like telemedicine may one day help us to overcome health disparities in both urban and rural communities. Connectivity is so powerful.
Q: What aspect of your work or the field keeps you up at night?
WL: The economics of hospital care and the misplacement of "value" concern me. Hospital care is not healthcare. Unless hospital systems are intentional, they do not necessarily improve healthcare and contribute to the culture of health of the communities they serve. I think there are solutions to the inequities that exist across populations, and I think that hospital systems have an important role in impacting social determinants of health. But what keeps me up at night is the concern that there are limitations financially to how much these hospital systems can participate because they are also businesses, and this may limit what they can do or are willing to do.
Q: What's one thing your hospital/system is doing in heart care that you're most proud of?
WL: I am here because Spectrum Health, now Corewell Health, hung up a banner after George Floyd that said "Black Lives Matter" and committed $50 million to impact health equity in the city. I am most proud of the commitment of this organization to have an impact.
Q: What's the best leadership advice you've received?
WL: My mentor said when you deal with people, you "put all cards on the table face up." That's how I try to lead my life. I try to tell people how I see things. I try to be transparent. If we start from a place of recognition of the facts, then I think it's easier to move on.
The other thing he said was, "The less credit you take for what you do, the more you can get done." I try to remember that every day and share credit for any successes we may have.