FMX Speaker Puts Spotlight on Maternal Child Health

“I had not yet experienced unstable housing,” said Oni, who grew up in a military family on or near military bases in California, Washington, North Carolina and Germany. “It was the first time I had to grapple with communities living on the margins and, for a number of reasons both socioeconomic and financial, with limited access to quality health care.”

The trip led to important conversations about the future with her mother, an intensive care nurse.

“We talked about what a career in medicine would look like and how to be a change agent and a pivotal community member,” she said.

After earning a biology degree at Xavier University, Oni headed for the Boston University School of Medicine with plans to be a pediatrician.

Once again, she witnessed something that changed her path.

“I had the privilege of seeing full-spectrum family medicine from a very well-established department,” she said, “and it opened my eyes to the family-centered way of providing perinatal care. That is what drew me to family medicine. I love the community. I love being able to embed myself in a community and in a family, and support them through the most vulnerable spaces and times in their lives, and watch them grow, evolve and thrive.”

During the Family Medicine Experience, Sept. 24-28 in Phoenix, Oni will deliver sessions on two maternal child health topics: fourth-trimester care and mitigating inequities in lactation.

Oni will present the lactation sessions with Kelly Vance Lawrence, M.D., FAAFP, associate program director of the Novant Health Family Medicine Residency in Cornelius, N.C.; and Jennifer Ann Somers, M.D., associate program director at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center in Massachusetts.

“We all do lactation medicine and family medicine, and we all work through a lens of health equity,” Oni said. “Our talk is centered on building a sense of community within lactation care and around our patients and our families, so that we can start to see some closure of the gaps and the disparities.”

Their collaboration began after Oni attended a session that Lawrence and Somers presented at a Society of Teachers of Family Medicine conference in 2021. She followed up after their presentation with questions about lactation disparities and how to address them in clinical practice. In the three years since, their work has evolved into regional and national presentations, panel discussions, grand rounds and qualitative research. 

Oni’s other FMX session will identify key elements of fourth-trimester care that promote healing and prevention of complications in the postpartum period. It also will cover the role of primary care physicians in the wellness of patients and their families during the fourth trimester.

Oni has two young children, including one born during the height of the pandemic. She said her own experience as a mother, including limited access to lactation services during the pandemic, influenced her scholarly work.

“I started looking into health disparities and equity across perinatal mental health disorders and the resources that are available within our community,” she said. “I really started thinking about family medicine as a pivotal member of this conversation to support not just the patient but the families who also are dealing with the ups and downs of any pregnancy, whether there’s a pandemic or not.”

After completing residency training at the University of North Carolina in 2015, Oni stayed for another year as chief resident and academic fellow. She spent the first few years of her career learning from the community in rural private practice, removed from academia. She returned to academics in 2019 as core residency faculty and director of maternal and child health services at Atrium Health’s Department of Family Medicine. She now is a laborist and hospitalist, serving as the director of clinical education with the University of North Carolina School of Medicine Novant Health Charlotte campus.

She said these roles offer the ability to build on her skillsets as an academic coach, mentor and physician educator.

“What I have grown to love is the development around mentorship and support for students who identify as underrepresented minorities or those who are first generation,” Oni said. “I’m finding equal passions in that space as I have found in equitable perinatal care, both in the direct support that I give to my students and residents, but also thinking about the infrastructure of medical education and how we can best eliminate bias and support their matriculation to residency and beyond. This is my academic happy place.”