Ashley Spann, MD, MSACI, assistant professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics, is the inaugural recipient of the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program Hepatology Award from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).
The Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program, an initiative started more than 20 years ago by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, works to increase the representation of minority scholars in academic medicine. The AASLD Governing Board recently approved funding to provide an annual stipend and research support for four years to one hepatology scholar. AASLD is the leading organization of scientists and health care professionals committed to preventing and curing liver disease.
Spann, a faculty member in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, cares for patients with end-stage liver disease, before and after liver transplantation. In her research, she aims to use electronic health record (EHR) decision support tools and informatics methods to advance care for patients with end-stage liver disease and to identify patients at risk of disease progression and implement preventive measures.
“This award goes beyond me. It’s up to all of us to think about how we can improve health disparities, and one of the biggest things we know is that we need to have a workforce that is representative of our patient population,” Spann said. “AASLD supporting these types of efforts is incredibly important and impactful for the community.”
Spann also recently received a Robert A. Winn Diversity in Clinical Trials Career Development Award. She is one of 65 physicians in the program’s third cohort that aims to increase diversity in clinical trials by training and mentoring early-stage investigator physicians who are diverse or have demonstrated commitment to clinical trial diversity.
The two-year award provides funding support and a curriculum that offers training in clinical research design and community engagement. Award recipients work with a mentor to craft a professional development plan and gain exposure to all aspects of clinical trial administration and implementation.
Spann and her mentor, Manhal Izzy, MD, associate professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, will be using informatics methods and electronic health record decision support tools to facilitate the recruitment of patients from diverse backgrounds to clinical trials.
“It is an unfortunate truth that there are significant gaps in enrollment and retention of diverse individuals into clinical trials. Often, the demographics of the populations we seek to treat rarely match those we see within clinical trials,” Spann said. “I aim to develop EHR-embedded tools that can level the playing field of awareness about who is at least eligible for potential studies, and hopefully increase equity of who is approached for inclusion.”
The Winn Career Development Award is part of the broader Robert A. Winn Diversity in Clinical Trials Award Program that was created in 2020 with a $100 million pledge by the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation as part of its commitment to health equity and to address the long-standing lack of diversity in clinical trials. The program is named for Robert A. Winn, MD, director and Lipman Chair in Oncology at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“It is our duty as physicians to treat clinical trials as the critical tool they are and ensure they represent the diverse communities and backgrounds of our patients,” said Winn in a news release about the awards. “By training the next generation of clinical trialists with these commitments, we are moving one step closer to making sure all people can benefit from medical innovation.”
Spann received her MD from The University of Alabama at Birmingham and completed a residency in internal medicine at Duke University. She completed fellowships at Vanderbilt in gastroenterology, clinical informatics and transplant hepatology, and she also earned an MS in applied clinical informatics from Vanderbilt University.