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A vision realized Student sees a need for AIDS education program in India and fills it. When first-year medical student Vivek Murthy completes his medical training and begins his career as a physician, he plans to continue a philanthropic venture he started as a freshman in college. If he is successful, he may well become the Paul Newman of the health products world, channeling profits from commercial enterprises into a charitable foundation that supports health education and other initiatives in developing countries and underserved communities in the United States. As an undergraduate at Harvard, Murthy launched VISIONS Worldwide Inc., a non-profit organization that has about 200 students working on AIDS prevention and community health projects. Its AIDS prevention program has sent American college students to India to help high school-age students organize local AIDS education and prevention efforts. Also in India, VISIONS has worked with a hospital to identify village women for training in nursing and community health. In the Boston area, VISIONS has linked student volunteers to HIV service agencies. VISIONS also publishes an annual journal and holds an annual conference. The organization’s AIDS education project in India started with six student emissaries in the summer of 1995; this summer 22 students are expected to go abroad. While in India, student volunteers meet with groups of students and hold workshops that use performance and role-playing to underscore the message of AIDS prevention. The concept of VISIONS grew from Murthy’s experience as a student in Florida, where he started a peer education program in which high school students mentored middle school students. At Harvard he decided to address the growing problem of AIDS in India, the country with the highest number of HIV-positive people, 4.1 million, according to UNAIDS. VISIONS Worldwide [P.O. Box 24-8315, Coral Gables, FL 33124] now has seven chapters in India and the United States, including three in the Boston area, at Tufts, MIT and Harvard. The students who travel to New Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore and Sringeri for peer education work must raise at least $2,000 towards their expenses. They train in Florida for two weeks, learning to teach and facilitate discussions while becoming more familiar with the culture of India. Murthy’s
goal in starting the organization, he said, was “to generate
change in local communities that would be sustainable, involve
local leadership and create a mutually beneficial partnership
between students in the United States and India.” He targeted
high school-age students because, although HIV infection is spreading
fastest among 15- to 24-year-olds, they seldom perceive themselves
to be at significant risk. Said Murthy: “Young people don’t
always relate what they hear about HIV and AIDS to themselves.
Our goal is to personalize HIV in a way that will make individual
prevention more effective and that will motivate students to
create and support community AIDS activities.” Internships guide public health students as they contemplate the road ahead. Each summer, public health students abandon the classroom and enter the world of business, health, law or politics to blend practical experience with their textbook studies. Summer internships may take them down Interstate 95 to a health care firm in Norwalk, Conn., or to Washington, Geneva or China to work at federal or international agencies. Last summer, 74 students worked on projects at home and abroad. One organized a database for a study of dementia among older Latino residents in California. Another wrote summaries of information on reproductive health for the World Health Organization in Geneva. A third student created financial models for health care companies at an investment banking firm on Wall Street. “The internships allow students to gain practical experience and get an idea of balancing theory and practice. It makes their studies come alive,” said Christy Bergheim, director of the EPH Office of Career Services, which helps place students in the program. “It is a transforming experience. They really come back professionals.” Students must complete their internships between the first and second years of the two-year M.P.H. program. Students research their internships independently, then discuss their plans with an adviser, who must approve them. Brooke Courtney worked for the Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco, one of about 50 public health organizations working for passage of tobacco legislation in Washington. Her job was to develop fact sheets, inform Senate staffers about issues and keep members of the Latino council up-to-date on developments on Capitol Hill. “It was an incredible experience,” said Courtney, whose concentration is in health policy and international health. “It gave me a really good understanding of the policy process, how law-making works, and how interest groups affect policy.” Tobacco was also the topic for Sue Lin Yee, who went to China, where a third of the world’s cigarettes are smoked. She studied anti-tobacco campaigns in China and assessed the attitudes of public health workers toward smoking. “Not all people in health were non-smokers,” Yee notes. Nevertheless, she found that health workers, as well as the general public, considered smoking a serious problem. She surveyed doctors, nurses and other health professionals, and found a majority preferred prevention programs aimed at adolescents over cessation programs for current smokers. They also favored student-generated smoking awareness pamphlets rather than after-school programs. “I think the most important thing I learned from the internship was how to deal with the unexpected when working in a foreign environment,” Yee said. “Often we go into the field with great expectations and very specific objectives, but we later discover that, for whatever reasons, we cannot meet our goals. Then it’s important to keep trying and to be firm, but if this fails, try to make the most out of the situation and make the appropriate changes in future research.” That was also the lesson for Mindy Perilla, who worked on several projects in China. One took her to Inner Mongolia where she investigated neonatal tetanus, a disease that can be prevented by hygienic birthing methods and immunization of prospective mothers. Perilla found her internship particularly challenging because she speaks no Chinese. “This is what international work is really like,” her preceptor told her when they discussed the frustrations of research. “It’s easy to overlook the impact that realities of life, resources, communication and culture can have when planning a project, even when doing so with experienced individuals ‘in-country,’ ” Perilla said. “Expectations and outcomes can be quite different.”
On Martin Luther King Day, an affirmation of ideals In song, speeches and verse, students and faculty at the medical school honored the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and beliefs as well as the new generation that will continue his struggle. “We can say humbly, honestly and without despair,” said Forrester A. Lee, M.D., associate professor of medicine and assistant dean for multicultural affairs, “that so much remains to be done. It is time to pass on the legacy of Dr. King to the next generation.” Speakers included the Rev. Frederick J. Streets, Yale University chaplain; Erin Armstead, a Yale College senior; Charles Warner, left, a senior at Hill Career High School; and Richard Lyn-Cook, right, a fourth-year medical student.
Auction raises $25,000 for the homeless and hungry The sixth annual Hunger and Homeless Auction organized by students last November raised more than $25,000 for local charities, including soup kitchens, food delivery agencies and a homeless shelter for women and children. Items on the block included lunch at the United Nations with Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a four-day sojourn at the Maine cottage of Deputy Dean Robert H. Gifford, M.D., H.S. ’67, and a dessert a month for six months. Two associate deans, Ruth Katz, J.D., M.P.H., and Nancy R. Angoff, M.D. ’90, H.S. ’90-93, M.P.H. ’81, successfully bid for roles in the second-year show presented in February. A four-day stay for up to six people in the Martha’s Vineyard home of Keith A. Joiner, M.D., professor of medicine and epidemiology, and Jo Ellen Schweinle, M.D., assistant clinical professor of medicine, fetched the highest price, $1,550. The design and construction of a tree house came in second at $1,400. Richard Donabedian, M.D., professor of laboratory medicine, hesitated not a second in bidding $500 for a promise of full attendance at a lecture from the Class of 2001. “I didn’t know we were that bad,” joked Kebba Jobarteh, a member of the class and one of the organizers of the auction. Other organizers were Michael Fehm and Kathy Witgert.
At a ceremony in May, students received awards for writing and community service. Claire Stylianopoulos, a first-year student, accepted the Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. Award on behalf of COVS, the Committee on Volunteer Services, which she chairs. The prize, a 10-volume set of the Netter Atlas, recognizes community service by students. Third-year students Amy Nuernberg and Ryan Davies shared this year’s Lerner Award for creative writing. Davies was honored for his essay on the marvels of the human body as seen by a student in the operating room. Nuernberg was recognized for a song she composed about end-of-life issues called I Have to Go. Professor Thomas Duffy and Associate Dean Nancy Angoff presented the awards at the final student-faculty tea of the year in the Beaumont Room.
The sounds of a gospel choir, Chilean and Cuban poetry, Korean drums and native American chants filled Harkness Auditorium on Jan. 15 as students held a jamboree to raise money for minority youth in New Haven. The money will go to a scholarship fund for students who participate in the Health Professions Recruitment and Enrichment Program (HPREP), which ran from January to April. HPREP is a national program created by the Student National Medical Association (SNMA) to expose young people to career opportunities and encourage them to go to college. At Yale, medical students taught classes on Saturday mornings on topics ranging from domestic violence to career opportunities in the health professions. “What is unique about Yale is that students are committed to this type of activity,” said David LaBorde, a second-year medical student and vice president of the local chapter of the SNMA < top
of page > Originally
published in Yale Medicine, Spring 1999. |
