Focus
Spotlight
September 23, 2002
Adding Workshops, Ebert Day Draws Audience to Community Service
Ebert Community Service Day, an annual event celebrating medical and dental students and others in the HMS community who volunteer at medical and public health sites, was held Sept. 19. Kicking off the afternoon was Jim Kim of the Department of Social Medicine who gave a talk titled "The Consumption of the Poor: Multi-drug Resistant TB and the Transformation of Global Public Health."
The award winners and representatives from the community organizations they represent are, front row (left to right), Richard Boehler, David Link, Liz Hick, and Iris Colon. Back row, Russet Murrow, Joan Reede, Adam Ortega, Vinny LaBella, Jenny Jackson, Ophelia Dahl, Heidi Behforouz, Phillip Hendrickson, and Riche Zamar. (Photo by Steve Gilbert)
Following his talk was the presentation of the fourth annual Dean's Community Service Awards. Emphasizing community service as an integral part of the HMS/HSDM academic mission, the award was established to recognize individuals who have made outstanding efforts to serve the local, national, and international community. A $1,000 donation is made to each group represented by the awardees.
Joan Reede, dean for diversity and community partnership, was master of ceremonies, introducing the recipients and their organizations, while R. Bruce Donoff, dean of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and Jacquelyn Smith-Crooks, director of community outreach programs, presented the awards.
Recipients this year were faculty members Heidi Behforouz, HMS instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, for her work with Prevention and Access to Care and Treatment; David Bor, HMS associate professor of medicine at Cambridge Hospital, for his work with Health of the City; David Link, HMS associate professor of pediatrics at Cambridge Hospital, for his work with the Cambridge Health Alliance; and DeWayne Pursley, HMS assistant professor of pediatrics at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, for his work with the Massachusetts chapter of the March of Dimes.
Student recipients of the award were Liz Hick, a PhD student in the Biomedical and Biological Sciences program, for creating Science in the News, and second-year HSDM students Jenny Jackson and Adam Ortega for their involvement in Operation Mouthguard.
Staff member Phillip Hendrickson, a research assistant in the HMS Department of Neurobiology, was recognized for his work with Opportunity Recycling in Ophthalmology. And the trainee/fellow award was presented to Iris Colon, a clinical fellow in obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, chosen for her work at the Latin American Health Institute.
Following the awards were various workshops, from the general--an introduction to volunteer opportunities in medicine and dentistry--to the specific--assessing HIV risk among Boston's homeless and providing test counseling and street outreach. The workshops were a first at this year's Ebert Day.
"We thought that the workshop format would stimulate greater interest in specific community service programs because it would allow time for a different kind of interaction as well as sharing of information," said Jacquelyn Smith-Crooks, director of community outreach programs in the Office for Diversity and Community Partnership.
Also on view were panels from the NAMES Project Foundation's AIDS Memorial Quilt. Representatives from various community agencies were on hand to provide information on volunteer opportunities.
The event was sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Community Partnership and the Office of Enrichment Programs.