Dr. Michael Warren leads March of Dimes’ plan of action against premature births
Is medical school the place for big-picture topics like population health and public policy? Opinions differ, and many satisfied students say they did not get such training. Dr. Michael Warren ’03 remembers it differently during his time at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University.
Earlier this year, the March of Dimes organization announced it had appointed ECU alumnus Dr. Michael Warren as its new chief medical and health officer. (Courtesy of March of Dimes)
“It felt to me like leadership, creating change, was really core to the mission of the school of medicine,” he reflects. “If you think about the fight between us and the state just to get a medical school in Greenville … it’s in the DNA of this school.”
Warren brings that background and a lot of verve to his new role as chief medical and health officer of the March of Dimes, the venerable child and family nonprofit founded by President Franklin Roosevelt as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and renamed for its famous fundraiser. Today, the March of Dimes stands in the breach for maternal health and premature births, birth defects and congenital ailments.
In Warren, the nonprofit has a deeply experienced public-health leader with a career shaped as much by child health policy at the state and federal level as clinical care. Earlier this year, he was in his eighth year leading the federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau, a part of the Health Resources and Services Administration, when he got an unexpected email reassigning him to the Indian Health Service and placing him on administrative leave.
“I started to think, what else is there for me?” Warren said.
The March of Dimes itself is an organization that has been forced to transform over the course of 88 years. Born out of the polio virus summers of the first half of the last century, it pivoted following the success of the Salk vaccine to population health matters such as newborn screenings. Each year it issues a report card for preterm births, a factor in infant deaths.
This year, following a D+ grade for the nation (only eight states did better than a C and as many received an F; North Carolina received a D+), Warren penned an explanation for Contemporary OB/GYN.
“One in four mothers did not begin prenatal care in the first trimester,” he said in a video accompanying the piece. “At March of Dimes, we talk a lot about access [to care, because] … we can’t improve birth outcomes without thinking about the health of pregnant people across their life course, even before they get pregnant.”
More than Medicine to Change a Single Life
As a third-year medical student, Warren joined Dr. Charles Willson, a member of the North Carolina Medical Society, and fellow students for a trip to Raleigh to meet with legislators. It was the first time he’d seen physicians advocate for legislation.
“I was blown away at the power physicians have,” he says, “and it dawned on me: There’s a special opportunity here to do good.”
That same year during his pediatric clerkship he joined a nurse on her postpartum home visits, and at one visit to a single-wide trailer at the end of a dirt path, he was struck by how cold it was. Looking about, he discovered a large hole in the floor. The nurse, he remembers, was unphased, and after an infant weight check and discussion about breast feeding and latching, the nurse pivoted to emergency home heating aid resources.
“That’s when I realized, I thought I knew so much about medicine, but to change a health outcome, medical knowledge is necessary, but it may not be sufficient,” he said.
Later, as director of Tennessee’s maternal and child health department responsible for the at-home mother and baby nurse visitation program, he found time to reflect on that cold December day in Pitt County, and the way it presaged his career.
Why Babies Are Born Prematurely Has Not Been Answered
The March of Dimes is a global nonprofit that this year hired Brody School of Medicine alumnus Dr. Michael Warren (2003) for its Chief Medical and Health Officer position. March of Dimes supports research, services and policy advocacy aimed to support preterm births and make them fewer. (Photo by Christian Bowen on Unsplash)
As chief medical and health officer, Warren oversees March of Dimes’ portfolio across programs, education, research and advocacy, effectively shaping the organization’s national strategy.
In his previous role he oversaw mobile prenatal units, simulation-based training and maternal mental health resources like the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline for the federal government to reach underserved regions and reduce disparities.
At the March of Dimes, “we have six prematurity research centers,” he says. “We know why some premature births happen, but not all.”
In North Carolina, about 13,000 babies were born premature this year. It’s a public health data point dear to Warren both because of his training and because he is a proud North Carolinian — a product of his childhood home outside of Newton Grove in Sampson County on his great-grandparents’ farmland.
Ten years ago, Warren endowed a Brody scholarship named for his parents, Dale and Janet. He has continued to pump new money in, growing the annual award. More recently, he pledged a substantial gift to the Center for Medical Education that will result in the pediatric care simulation room being named for his parents.
“Neither of my parents went to college. Both went to work straight out of high school, had the same employers for 40-plus years. My dad was on the town council. My mom on the parks board. He was a deacon, she a lady auxiliary.
“My sense of duty, of service, is rooted in them.”
Learn more about scholarships and giving opportunities through the ECU Health Foundation.