Meet our Guest Editor, Jeff Mapp MD, MBA, a Richmond native who has dedicated 16 years to pediatric care in his hometown. After graduating from the VCU School of Medicine, Jeff practiced at Pediatric Associates of Richmond for almost 15 years. He has more recently joined the faculty at the Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU. His passion for global health, ignited during his pre-med days in Guatemala, led to the creation of Extra Mile Pediatrics, a global health nonprofit, in 2018. The organization serves nine communities across Guatemala and El Salvador.
Beyond his medical achievements, Jeff is also a food enthusiast, always on the hunt for local food spots, breweries, and coffee shops when he's not in his scrubs. Jeff lives in Richmond with his wife and two daughters.
Take it away, Jeff...
Villages at Révéler
On Friday March 22nd, local band Villages ("Part Americana, part neo-70's folk rock") will be playing at Révéler in Carytown. This popular venue and local favorite band are not to be missed, so consider grabbing a ticket ASAP. Villages will be doing an acoustic set, and will be joined by several special guest musicians throughout the night.
Vitals:
Villages at Révéler / Friday, March 22nd, 8:00 - 10:45 pm, tickets $12 - 15 / Révéler, 3108 W Cary Street
The Extra Mile 5k
We're super excited to host the inaugural Extra Mile 5K this weekend in Byrd Park! Even though we are a global health nonprofit, we are firmly rooted in RVA. So we're loving this opportunity to get together with tons of our supporters and the Richmond running community to celebrate our hometown. We think we've put together a unique event as runners will not only run the traditional 3.1 miles of a 5K, but will go the extra mile to create a total race distance of 4.1 miles. Those who aren't interested in as long a course, but still want to be involved have the option of registering for just "The Extra Mile" only, making this event great for walkers and joggers of all speeds and intensities!
Registration is still open for this event and will remain open until race morning, so it's not too late to join us!
There are so many great local breweries in the Richmond area, and there are so many things that make each one worth a visit. Final Gravity became a bit of a race planning office for our team as we were putting together the Extra Mile 5K, for lots of reasons. They have a very active running community, and Final Gravity Run Club hosts weekly run groups in the area. The brewery has a great neighborhood feel, and the staff is always super friendly and helpful. Last, but certainly not least, they have great beers on tap as well as several kombucha options and snacks.
We'll have a crew of people there at least twice this week. Our post-race celebration will be at Final Gravity on Saturday afternoon and I plan to head back for Trivia night Tuesday at 7:00 pm!
In January of this year, our field teams saw our 3,000th patient since inception. As exciting as that milestone is, we are more proud of the quality of care each patient received, and the consistency with which they were seen in follow-up year after year. Our focus remains on foundational health issues that can create sustainable and long-lasting positive impact: development, growth, nutrition, chronic care management and more. The time our clinical teams spend in each community does more than provide care at the individual patient level. Our teams are also able to discern the nuances and circumstances that make healthcare access so difficult for our families. We can then develop systems and programs that can be run locally, and on an ongoing basis, so that overtime care is available and dependable. To date we have developed programs that provide households with clean drinking water and that provide children with poor vision with custom glasses for vision correction. Finally we have piloted programs that deliver speech therapy for children with developmental delay and products and education to address menstrual health and period poverty. We feel strongly that the combination of ongoing clinical care at the individual level, paired with program development and systems-level solutions, is a combination that creates the kind of change that grows over time and can ultimately lift entire communities.
