PA Lavette Shirley Elee Co-Founded a Women’s Health Nonprofit to Provide Vital Education to Underserved Populations

“We don’t want to just talk about problems. We want to be a solution.”

October 24, 2024

By Jennifer Walker

In 2023, Lavette Shirley Elee, PA-C, DScPAS, MPAS, had a pivotal conversation with her best friends, Shardell Artis and Carrie Flock, both breast cancer survivors, about starting a women’s health organization. This was a daunting task—but Elee took a cue from her favorite motivational speaker, YouTuber Eddie Pinero. Instead of getting overwhelmed by all the work required to start a new project, she focused on taking it one step after another. Elee, Artis, and Flock officially founded the Women’s Health and Resilience Foundation later that year.

Through this nonprofit, they raise awareness about breast cancer through their annual gala and offer education sessions on a variety of women’s health topics, including endometriosis, pelvic floor disorders, and uterine fibroids. These sessions allow them to provide comprehensive support to women who are mainly from underserved communities, a population for whom Elee has been a strong advocate throughout her PA career.

“As a medical provider, I have seen firsthand how delays in care and a lack of health literacy can lead to poor outcomes,” said Elee, an assistant professor in the PA program at Wingate University in Wingate, North Carolina. “Our mission at the foundation is to fill that gap and make sure women are the best advocates for themselves.”

Caring for Underserved Populations
After working in family medicine and a psychiatric outpatient clinic, Elee found a role she loved in urgent care, providing care for many underserved patients. “You really catch this population who may not go in to see a primary care provider, but they will come to the urgent care because they have something they have to get treated,” she said. “It’s always been awesome for me to be able to treat and possibly connect them with a primary care provider, so they have somebody who is managing their care.”

Elee practiced in urgent care for nine years. But when the pandemic hit in 2020, she began to feel increasingly burned out. She was seeing approximately 70 patients a day and spending the majority of her time testing for COVID. This combination made her feel like she wasn’t doing meaningful work for her patients. “With 70 patients, there’s no way I could treat them in the way I would like to and in the way they deserve,” she said.

Around this time, Elee had already been thinking about shifting into education. She received her doctorate from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences then joined Wingate University as an assistant professor and course director for clinical medicine in the PA program.

In this role, Elee lectures about dermatology, endocrinology, and women’s health. She also ensures her students are exposed to underserved populations by hosting speakers, some of whom are African American and/or transgender, who talk about their experiences with breast cancer, domestic violence, and obesity, as well as how they have been treated differently by the medical system. Then students can take these experiences with them as they become providers treating a diverse group of patients.

Promoting Diversity and Representation on Campus
At Wingate, Elee also founded the PA program’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee shortly after joining the university in 2021. “When I came to Wingate, we didn’t have very much diversity when it comes to the student population,” she said. “But our patients are very diverse. We want to make sure that PAs represent the population. I felt like it made sense to have an actual committee dedicated to that goal with agendas and specific point people to get the ball rolling on some of these initiatives.

The DEI Committee’s biggest initiative is a mentorship program in which current PA students and recently-graduated alumni mentor pre-PA students. The committee also hosts an annual lecture and luncheon event where pre-PA students can chat and network with the mentors, as well as meet the PA program’s director and admissions specialist.

Now, three years after the committee was founded, the Wingate PA program has seen a significant increase in diversity in their most recent student cohort, Elee said. The mentorship program has helped in making progress on this goal, as has outreach in various communities. Elee spreads the word about Wingate’s PA program at events hosted by Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), as well as organizations like Latin Americans Working for Achievement. “We go wherever we can to say that we have a program and it’s a safe space to be,” she added.

Along with the classroom, representation is also vital in the workplace to promote safety and inclusion. At one of Elee’s recent faculty meetings, there was a discussion about revising guidelines about student appearance, including hair texture. Elee pointed out that clarification was needed about the meaning of texture to make sure they were being inclusive of the entire school community.

“Being somebody who maybe would be directly affected, I was able to bring that up and we made adjustments,” said Elee, who is also the author of seven children’s books about the PA and other medical professions, including I Saw My PA Today. “If you have somebody who truly understands because they have been there, they’re going to think of things that could potentially be an issue. We can then help make sure those things are no longer an issue and underserved students are on a level playing field with everyone else. That means more people who are diverse are going to be able to get through these programs and do well in their careers.”

Helping Women Become Their Best Health Advocates
In October 2024, the Women’s Health and Resilience Foundation held their second annual Concrete Rose Breast Cancer Awareness Gala, a fundraising event that honors breast cancer survivors, as well as fighters who are currently in treatment. Elee shares stories about each honoree, who is gifted a basket of items that are helpful during and after chemotherapy and/or radiation treatments. Education is also a focus, with Elee leading a trivia game to teach attendees about women’s health.

The gala, along with grants received from organizations like the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA), allows the foundation to host education sessions in the community. Elee and her co-founders work with community partners—including Carolina Breast Friends, Daughters of Empowerment Alliance, Hotworx Matthews, and Tigerlily—to reach women in locations around North Carolina. At these sessions, Elee lectures for 30 minutes about a women’s health topic and answers questions—an important aspect of this outreach given that medical appointments are often limited to 15 minutes. Elee and the team also provide all attendees with resources, including a list of local providers and handouts related to the lecture topic. Food is served at every session.

Elee, Artis, and Flock strive to provide additional support to women in need as well. They delivered groceries to a former gala honorary who had become unhoused and bought gifts and attended the baby shower for a young pregnant woman who had a reoccurrence of breast cancer. These deeds exemplify the ethos of the Women’s Health and Resilience Foundation: “We don’t want to just talk about problems,” Elee said. “We want to be a solution.”

Jennifer Walker is a freelance writer in Baltimore, MD. Contact Jennifer at [email protected].

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