West Virginia public health commissioner to speak at WVU Health Sciences
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University School of Public Health’s Public Health Dialogues Speaker Series will resume at 12:15 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 3 in Room 1905 of the WVU Health Sciences Center.
Letitia E. Tierney, M.D., J.D., public health commissioner and state health officer for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, will present “The State of Health in West Virginia.”
Dr. Tierney directs public health activities at all levels within the state to fulfill the core functions of public health. This includes oversight and development of public health policy, community assessment, and assuring services are available, accessible, and of acceptable quality. She works indirectly with 54 autonomous local health departments across West Virginia to help meet the goal of healthy West Virginians in healthy communities. She was on the front lines during the Charleston water crisis earlier this year.
Prior to her current role, Tierney worked at Charleston Area Medical Center as a hospitalist physician and associate quality director. Her responsibilities included serving as the associate director of a large hospitalist group of more than 50 employees, using evidence based medicine and research in the care of her patients, and working to improve the performance of the hospital and healthcare system by employing quality and process improvement techniques in collaboration and coordination with staff, physicians, and leadership.
Additionally, as a lawyer, Tierney has worked in both the private and public sector. She has worked for U.S. Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV and in the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office.
The Public Health Dialogues Speaker Series is sponsored by the Office of Public Health Practice and Workforce Development within the WVU School of Public Health. The series is free and open to the public.
Those interested in attending should RSVP to SPH-Dialogues@hsc.wvu.edu to reserve a complimentary lunch at noon.