Baltimore Schweitzer Fellows Jessica Ton and Jordan Ambrose held a domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) awareness event on Nov. 11.

Since the start of their Fellowship year, Jordan Ambrose and Jessica Ton have been working to develop SafeStart — a program aimed at empowering young victims of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST) to help them develop healthy lifestyles and re-enter society with a better outlook for their future.

Sadly, programs like SafeStart are sorely needed in Baltimore, where sex trafficking — as brought to light by the tragic case of Shaniya Davis – “is  prevalent enough in Maryland that there is a state task force assembled to address the issue.” (WBAL-TV Baltimore)

Last week, these two Baltimore Schweitzer Fellows (both students at University of Maryland, Baltimore Medical School)  held a dinner aimed at raising awareness of DMST, along with a university-wide clothing/toiletry drive.

According to Ambrose and Ton, who have partnered with YANA Place to implement their project, “the program for the dinner consisted of a brief introduction to the topic of domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST), followed by a question and answer session from a panel of trafficking experts from the fields of law, immigration and customs, and social work.”

Additionally, two DMST survivors shared their powerful stories with the audience of more than 75 students hailing from the University of Baltimore, Maryland’s medical, dental, pharmacy, law, nursing, and social work schools.

YANA Executive Director Sidney Ford (center, in blue), Schweitzer Fellow Jordan Ambrose (red sweater, to Ford's right), Schweitzer Fellow Jessica Ton (far left, in green sweater) with event attendees.

ASF President Lachlan Forrow in front of a portrait of Albert Schweitzer that hangs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. (Courtesy BIDMC)

When it comes to Albert Schweitzer and animals, most people think of Schweitzer’s iconic pelican, Parcival (or the hippos that prompted Schweitzer’s experience of Reverence for Life). But today, another animal — the tiger — shares the Schweitzer spotlight.

For his work leading ASF, 1982 Lambarene Fellow and ASF President Dr. Lachlan Forrow has been named “Tiger of the Week” by Princeton Alumni Weekly (he’s a 1978 graduate of the university):

“Schweitzer started his hospital in Lambaréné, but he said that everyone has his or her own Lambaréné,” Forrow said. “When they find it, it’s very fulfilling. … We’re trying to help people find their Lambaréné.”

The medical, nursing, and public-health students who apply for Schweitzer Fellowships don’t necessarily know much about the program’s namesake, but Schweitzer’s ideals of service and reverence for life resonate with them, according to Forrow. Fellows spend at least 200 hours in challenging service projects while juggling full workloads at school. Managing such an ambitious schedule, Forrow said, teaches the fellows that it is possible to continue this type of service throughout their professional lives.

Read the full feature here.  Congrats, Dr. Forrow!

1988 Lambarene Fellow Dr. Scott Cohen (pictured above volunteering in Guatemala) has been named a "Pediatric Hero" by the AAP.

In 1988, Dr. Scott Cohen followed in Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s footsteps, traveling to the Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Africa and spending three months delivering medical care to area residents in acute need.

According to the Bangor Daily News, as a Schweitzer Fellow, Cohen

saw firsthand how a lack of medical resources, which are readily available in the United States, can mean a death sentence.

He watched helplessly as children died and it changed him, his parents, Honey and Lester Cohen of Bangor, said during the lunch.

“He said to me, ‘I didn’t go to school for all those years to go home and count my money. I became a physician to help people,’” Lester Cohen recalled.

And that’s exactly what Cohen has done. Since returning from Lambaréné, he has dedicated his life to improving the health outcomes of people living in developing countries.

In these countries, access to formal health services is often limited, and medical care is largely delivered by lay practitioners. Cohen looked at this situation and saw an opportunity: why not provide those  lay practitioners with training, and in doing so empower them to dramatically and sustainably improve the quality of care for women and children?

In 2002, Cohen seized that opportunity and founded Global Pediatric Alliance, which “seeks to promote grassroots empowerment and improve child and maternal health by providing educational, technical, and financial support for community-based health projects in Latin America.”

For his unyielding commitment to this mission, Cohen (a pediatrician at Kaiser Permanente in San Rafael, CA) has been named a “Pediatric Hero” by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

The award — for which over 400 nominations were received — was given last month to Cohen and three other pediatricians “who exemplify what it means to be a hero to children.”

According to the AAP’s press release, a “Pediatric Hero” is

a pediatrician who provides exceptional care for patients and parents, speaks up for the underprivileged and underserved, and makes a commitment to children and to lifelong learning.

Cohen certainly fits the bill. As he told the AAP, “There is no greater privilege than to practice medicine as a pediatrician. It offers a chance to build close trusting relationships with patients and their families, which enables one to advocate in a meaningful way for children. Whether our work takes place domestically or abroad, pediatricians should honor and embrace this unique opportunity.”

Click here for a Marin Independent Journal feature on Cohen.

Schweitzer Fellow Caitlin Johnson (above, left) found her own Lambarene by co-founding the inaugural Dartmouth Lego League Robotics Tournament last year.

At this past Saturday’s Pri-Med East keynote, ASF President Dr. Lachlan Forrow talked about the idea of “finding your own Lambarene” — doing what you love most and are best at, and applying that skill in a way that is of service to our fellow human beings and our world.

Over the past three years, Schweitzer Fellows at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering have done exactly that — in a very unique way.

Starting with 2007-08 New Hampshire-Vermont Schweitzer Fellows Rose Mutiso and Kristen Lurie, and continuing with 2008-09 Fellows Caitlin Johnson and Phil Wagner, these Fellows launched the Dartmouth Lego League (DLL) — aimed at promoting middle-schoolers’ self-confidence and knowledge, and encouraging their interest in science, technology, and engineering.

This past weekend, those Fellows’ efforts culminated in the second annual Dartmouth Lego League Robotics Tournament, at which “eighteen teams from local elementary and middle schools around New Hampshire and Vermont [demonstrated] their problem-solving skills, creative thinking, teamwork, competitive play, sportsmanship, and sense of community.” (Click here for a press release about the event.)

In addition to igniting young people’s passion for science and engineering, the tournament brought many different segments of the Dartmouth community together:

This year’s event involved more volunteers from different sectors of the community, including local high school students and town residents, Johnson said. The diversity of volunteers helped to bring the College together with the local community, she said.

Johnson said her interaction with the town, and particularly with local children, is one of greatest benefits of the Lego League program.

“It’s nice getting to know people in the local community,” she said. “It keeps me going.”

Read The Dartmouth’s coverage of Saturday’s second annual Dartmouth Lego League Robotics Tournament here.

“You ask me to give you a motto. Here it is: SERVICE. Let this word accompany each of you throughout your life. Let it be before you as you seek your way and your duty in the world. May it be recalled to your minds if ever you are tempted to forget or set it aside, it will not always be a comfortable companion but it will always be a faithful one.” – Dr. Albert Schweitzer

“You must not expect anything from others. It’s you, yourself, of whom you must ask a lot.” — Dr. Albert Schweitzer

We’ve written before about the ways Schweitzer Fellows are meeting the health needs of disenfranchised, underserved veterans.

Today — a day where we all pause to honor those who have served, and sacrificed for, our country — we’re given a heartbreaking reminder of why projects like those Schweitzer Fellows’ are necessary:

A research team at Harvard Medical School estimates 2,266 U.S. military veterans under the age of 65 died last year because they lacked health insurance and thus had reduced access to care. That figure is more than 14 times the number of deaths (155) suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died (911 as of Oct. 31) since the war began in 2001.

The Harvard research team’s findings were reported yesterday by Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). In addition to the sobering statistics, PNHP’s report included these words from Harvard’s Dr. David Himmelstein:

“On this Veterans Day we should not only honor the nearly 500 soldiers who have died this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the more than 2,200 veterans who were killed by our broken health insurance system. That’s six preventable deaths a day.”

Schweitzer Fellows working to improve veterans’ health care access have seen firsthand the failures of that system — and are dedicating themselves to changing things.

“Originally not from Baltimore, I came to the city to work with veterans with mental illness at the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Hospital,” says 2008-09 Baltimore Schweitzer Fellow Noah Isserman. “While working with patients, I realized that the best way to provide assistance to the veterans was through attending law school — after which I would provide guidance to veterans on how to navigate the complex systems created to provide access to health care to veterans.”

“I started the Schweitzer project with the notion that I would provide legal assistance to veterans on a case by case basis,” Isseman says. “However, I quickly realized that a year was not enough time to make even a small impact on a case-by-case basis when dealing with the veterans benefits process” — a process that takes, on average, two to three years, due to long timelines on paperwork requests and fact research.

“With this difficulty in mind, I shifted my focus to raising awareness of these issues and helping others learn the knowledge that they would need to provide their own assistance to veterans,” Isserman says.  Along with his partner organizations, Isserman has helped to provide training for over 40 Baltimore-area attorneys, each of whom is now able to provide assistance to veterans on a pro bono basis. Additionally, the work completed in Isserman’s Fellowship year prompted his school, the University of Maryland, to begin creating a unique clinic aimed at assisting homeless veterans in getting off the streets and taking control of a more productive and healthy life.

As a result of his Schweitzer Project,  Isserman was offered a position with the United States Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, working with the committee to help in their new initiative to overhaul the veterans benefits process into a more streamlined and easier to understand process for veterans around the country.

Reports like PNHP’s make it clear that Isserman and his colleagues’ mission couldn’t be more urgent.

This week, two Schweitzer Fellows for Life (Anthony Lim and Steven Lin) and one ASF Board Member (Robert Lawrence, MD) received national recognition for their commitment to public service.

Lim and Lin have been named as two of the five 2009 Pisacano Scholars honored by the philanthropic arm of the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM). According to the Annals of Family Medicine, Pisacano Scholars have “demonstrated the highest level of leadership, academic achievement, communication skills, community service, and character and integrity.”

As a 2007-08 Boston Schweitzer Fellow, Lim led support groups for homeless individuals recuperating from illness at the Barbara McInnis House in Jamaica Plain. The sessions addressed issues relevant to Boston’s homeless population, such as improving organizational skills, problem-solving, coping with stress and anxiety, and complying with medical recommendations. Outside of the support groups, Lim—now a fourth-year medical student at Boston University School of Medicine—conducted structured one-on-one interviews of the residents, helped lead walking groups, and assisted at two health fairs put on at the Pine Street Inn and Long Island Shelter.

Lin, a 2007-08 Bay Area Schweitzer Fellow, worked with Fellow Elizabeth Chao to implement a comprehensive Hepatitis B Initiative at the Pacific Free Clinic in East San Jose. They worked with the Asian Liver Center at Stanford to provide free hepatitis B testing, vaccination, treatment and education for all Asian and Pacific Islanders in East San Jose who had low incomes, no insurance, and low English proficiency. Open only on Saturdays, this clinic saw approximately 500 patients from the time it was opened in July, 2007 to the end of the Fellowship year in April 2008. It has continued operation under the direction of other Stanford students and a number of dedicated volunteers. Lin is now a fourth-year medical student at Stanford School of Medicine.

Additionally, longtime ASF Board Member – and plenary speaker at ASF’s 3rd Annual Fellows for Life Conference—Robert S. Lawrence, MD, has been awarded the Sedgwick Award Medal for Distinguished Service in Public Health. The medal is the American Public Health Association’s (APHA) oldest and most prestigious honor.

According to the APHA, “since 1929, the Sedgwick medal has been awarded annually to an individual who has demonstrated a distinguished record of service to public health while tirelessly working to advance public health knowledge and practice.”

Currently Director of the Center for a Livable Future at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Lawrence has “worked to expand access to health care to the poor and racial minorities in the United States, investigated and promoted human rights internationally, taught and established programs in human rights and public health and provided cutting-edge leadership on the intersection of agricultural policy and environmental protection” (APHA).

To read more about Lawrence’s extraordinary career and commitment to public service, click here.

Kate B. Reynolds Schweitzer Fellows Matt Wetschler (far left) and Bart Steen (in headband) launched Los Coyotes, a running group for migrant Hispanic men.

Every Tuesday, Beyond Boulders runs a five-question interview with either a first-year Schweitzer Fellow or a Schweitzer Fellow for Life (ie, a Fellow whose initial year with ASF has been completed, but whose commitment to lifelong service continues).

Today, we talk with Bartlett Steen and Matthew Wetschler, Kate B. Reynolds Schweitzer Fellows in North Carolina.  Working with El Centro Latino, the UNC School of Medicine students have launched Los Coyotes, a running group for migrant Hispanic men that doubles as an informal focus group for health concerns in the community. Steen and Wetschler’s ultimate hope for Los Coyotes? That they’ll be able to step back from it — because it will instead be led by members of the community it strives to serve.

Why did you develop your particular project?

Resource-rich and resource-deprived communities often co-exist shoulder to shoulder.  As individuals that find themselves in a resource-rich community, there exists the possibility of acting as a conduit between commodities to which we have access and a community without access to those commodities.

We started the program with the simple idea of trying to be conduits for resources.  We tried to have few if any preconceptions as to the needs of the community, and in that regard, planned little as to the “intervention” we would pursue.

Instead we committed simply to being present and receptive — believing that the simple act of showing up consistently can speak more than even the most grandiose of plans. Beyond words, showing up week in and week out actively exemplifies our commitment, and from that a true foundation of trust is built.

The centerpiece of our program is running twice a week.  This has obvious physical and emotional benefits intrinsically, and in that regard, even the most skeletal expression of our program responds to the Schweitzer mentality.

Our runs act also as something more, a cross-cultural medium and a way to learn about the difficulties of neighboring communities outside of surveys and formal “needs assessment” initiatives.

As our relationships develop and a sense of trust is strengthened, we hope to find current and authentic needs of the community to which we can creatively direct resources available to us as medical students.  Our ultimate goal is to become silent conduits between two neighboring communities eventually stepping back to the role of co-participants in a program led by the community which it strives to serve.

What do you hope will be the lasting impact of your project on the community it serves?

We hope that the Coyotes will serve as a source of empowerment for the Hispanic community.  Already in our second season, the runners are gaining a strong sense of pride, both through physical accomplishments as well as through a new identity that the group provides.

Several of the members have lacked consistent means of exercising since migrating from Mexico many years ago.  Now, running several miles a week, each member is being proactive about his health — not only physical but mental health.  Running has been proven to reduce one’s risk of depression.  It makes the runner feel good about himself and about his body, with more energy and endurance throughout the week.

We hope that the runners in our group continue to transform themselves in positive ways, that running with friends affect not only their own lives, but the lives of their families and, on a larger scope, the life of the Hispanic community as a whole.

What do you think is the most pressing health-related issue of our time, and how do you think it should be addressed?

Access.  Unequal distribution of health care is a form of injustice that disproportionately causes unnecessary suffering and illness in poor and underserved communities.  The excellence of tertiary care, far from excusing our system’s shortcomings, only heightens the inequity.  It is difficult for us to take pride in state-of-the-art technology when those who need access to it are deemed uninsurable.

Distribution of resources has been considered outside of the realm of medical responsibility – we focus our education on how best to treat pathologies – yet these decisions are being made daily by businessmen, analysts and lawyers.  It seems to be the role of the modern physician to be frustrated with her place in the system – or the system as a whole – yet have no capacity or surplus energy to alter it.

The change must start at an educational level. We must educate future physicians to be versed not only in the classic fare of illness and its treatment but also in the language of business and law.  We must have physicians instilled with the drive to advocate for the patient, and also the capacity to speak in the vernacular of statistics and economics.  Until we as a medical community can competently participate in this aspect of health care, the system will form itself around values constructed by insurers and analysts and not those expressed by the oath that we take as physicians.

What has been the most surprising element of your experience so far as a Schweitzer Fellow?

The other day one of our participants told us about how in Mexico he used to work with youths that had drug and alcohol problems.  He wanted to do something similar here in the local community.  He had, without knowing it, essentially recited our original mission statement, created before even our first runner joined us.

Since our inception, the form of Los Coyotes has adapted to every new challenge – even the name was changed.  We had envisioned our program helping the subject of a common narrative told to us of young male Latinos, isolated, unemployed, depressed and often drinking excessively.  We thus far have not been able to gain access to this demographic – one theory is that without pre-existing connections to the Latino community, our group garners very little trust or legitimacy.

We have a small core of runners – all positive, healthy and active, many with a history of previous running.  We still strive to grow our group and reach out to individuals that may feel isolated or have issues with alcohol.  To be in the midst of racking our brains on how to do this, then have one of our runners under his own initiative tell us that he wants to use Los Coyotes to reach people having drug and alcohol problems is enthralling.

We feel that having Latinos creating programs for other Latinos is the only way that some of our original ideas will be materialized. Finding a person willing and excited about doing such a thing is probably a high point of our program thus far.

Our experiences thus far have shown us that every step will bring something unexpected and at times you may feel yourself drifting from the “plan”; however, flexible persistence and a broad adherence to core program values can yield other equally unexpected opportunities bringing you back “on course” and often with better understanding and greater capabilities.

What does Albert Schweitzer’s legacy mean to you, and how will you carry it with you once your initial year as a Fellow draws to a close?

The most inspiring aspect of Albert Schweitzer’s legacy is his firm belief in equality among human beings, accompanied by a determination to reach people of all nations.  He saw himself as just one piece out of a giant puzzle of humanity, meant to work together with others towards a single common goal.

Keeping this in mind has been one of our greatest challenges so far this year.  Working across a massive cultural barrier often creates the illusion that we have competing objectives for the group.  As medical students, we want to see our members get into good shape, lose weight and lower their blood pressures.  However, they are attracted to participate, not by the health benefits, but by the sense of unity and identity that the group provides.

Reminding ourselves of this is critical—that although we as leaders wish for the best with all of the runners, we may have a different concept of what that means for them and their families.  Like Albert Schweitzer, we seek to admire and expand the culture with which we are working, rather than impose our own beliefs.  As we continue to learn about and understand each other, we can do this more and more effectively.

Click here to read more about the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust’s partnership with ASF.

Today’s roundup of news stories related to health disparities, health care, health issues, direct service, social justice, animal welfare, environmentalism… basically, all things Schweitzer:

• On Saturday night, the House of Representatives narrowly approved a  bill “that would be the biggest expansion of health care coverage since Medicare was created more than 40 years ago.” Will the bill make it through the senate intact (or at all)? Time will tell… (CNN)
• The WHO releases the results of its first-ever study of global women’s health, and reports that “the AIDS virus is the leading cause of death and disease among women between the ages of 15 and 44″ (Associated Press)
• Schweitzer Fellow for Life (and ASF Board Member) Stefan Kertesz urges the Birmingham community to capitalize on progress being made towards ending homelessness (Birmingham News)
• Robert Frank spotlights the Mayo model of health care delivery — and the challenges to its more widespread implementation (New York Times)