Greater Philadelphia Schweitzer Fellows offered screenings and health workshops to underserved Camden residents.

The Greater Philadelphia area may have lost out on a World Series title this time around, but luckily, it’s still home to a champion team of Schweitzer Fellows. OK, that’s a little cheesy (and probably not an enormous consolation to diehard Phils fans). But there’s no denying the fact that the current crop of Greater Philadelphia Schweitzer Fellows — whose service projects tackle everything from diabetes prevention to domestic violence outreach –  are dedicating themselves to giving the area’s underserved communities something to cheer about.

Case in point: last month, five Schweitzer Fellows held a service day at the Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Farmer’s Market in Camden, which serves primarily underserved populations. Over 100 Camden residents came out for the event, where the Fellows checked blood pressures and blood glucose levels (see photo below).

Schweitzer Fellow Farhad Modarai carried out blood pressure and glucose screenings.

The Fellows also led a series of targeted prevention workshops:

• Usha Kumar and Alex Potashinsky (Drexel University) offered one-on-one counseling on preventive wound care. In addition to handing out hygiene supplies like  soap and nail clippers, they discussed reducing drug use, implementing better hygiene routines, and finding ways to exercise.
• Spurred by the CDC’s finding that falls are the main cause of injury death in  older adults, Hyun Ouk Hong (UMDNJ) manned a table on fall prevention. He distributed educational pamphlets provided by the New Jersey Institute for Successful Aging, and also offered workshops on the subject.
• Troubled by many Camden residents’ lack of access to healthy foods, Farhad Modarai (UMDNJ) manned a table offering fruits and vegetables (as well as educational materials on nutrition). Additionally, he held workshops focused on how to make eating healthy foods budget-friendly.
• Valencia Barnes (UMDNJ) and several UMDNJ dentists offered on-site oral health/cancer screenings for area residents — both children and adults. Children were screened for oral hygiene, tooth irregularities, and other pediatric dental issues; adults were screened for oral cancers, oral hygiene, and tooth decay.

Dr. Shawn Kelly performed oral health screenings on children and adults in attendance.

“To help life reach full development, the good man is the friend of all living things.” – Dr. Albert Schweitzer

ASF President Dr. Lachlan Forrow (pictured at last month's Schweitzer Fellows for Life Conference) will deliver a keynote address on medicine, healing, and social service at Pri-Med East.

In addition to being a Schweitzer Fellow for Life, ASF’s President, Lachlan Forrow, MD, is Director of Ethics and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Over the past several months, he has served as leading CME provider Pri-Med’s online expert on matters of ethics and professional responsibility (click here to read his answers to clinicians’ questions about everything from conscientious objection to  end of life decisions).  And on Saturday, Nov. 14, he — and three other Schweitzer Fellows for Life — will take the stage at  Pri-Med East to deliver a keynote address entitled “Medicine, Healing, and Service: How We Can All Make a Difference in the Social Sector.”

As we’ve written in previous blog posts, providing primary care is hard (and made even harder by a health care system that deincentivizes the primary care track). In the face of systemic barriers and daily frustrations, remembering why you likely entered medicine in the first place — to heal, to serve, to make a difference — is often difficult. In his talk on the 14th, Dr. Forrow (backed by the powerful examples of Schweitzer Fellows for Life Ashley Younger, NP;  Rushika Fernandopulle, MD, MPP; and Zirui Song, MD) will attempt to help attendees find renewal, reuniting medicine, healing, and service in their daily work.

He’ll do so by emphasizing a powerful idea: the idea that every single clinician in attendance can make a difference by, in Albert Schweitzer’s words, “finding their own Lambarene” – ie, doing what they 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.

Forrow will shine a spotlight on the instructive experiences of Younger, Fernandopulle, and Song; conference attendees will have the chance to interact with Forrow and the three other Fellows for Life at a Meet & Greet directly following the keynote.

If you’re a Boston-area clinician who is planning on attending Pri-Med East, we hope you’ll stop by and introduce yourself. And even more importantly, we hope you’ll emerge re-energized about the profession you’ve chosen, and confident in your own power to make a difference in the lives of those around you.

Dr. Forrow — and three Baltimore Fellows for Life — will also be delivering a keynote on medicine, healing, and service on Dec. 4 at Pri-Med Mid-Atlantic.

“The one essential thing is that we strive to have light in ourselves. When people have light in themselves, it will shine out from them.” — Dr. Albert Schweitzer

We blogged earlier this week about StreetWise, where a group of Schweitzer Fellows and Fellows for Life volunteered on Sunday, October 18.

That same day, another group of Fellows and Fellows for Life traveled to Skokie Lagoons, part of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. They worked with Forest Stewards and FPDCC Staff to cut invasive plants and shrubs, as well as contribute to litter cleanup.Luckily, the weekend’s rain and clouds had dissipated by Sunday morning — so the Fellows’ time at Skokie was dry, sunny, and productive!

View the full photo album from their time at Skokie (as well as at StreetWise) here.

Thanks to Chicago Fellow Amy Yetasook, who was on photo duty!

“Grow into your ideals, so that life can never rob you of them.” – Dr. Albert Schweitzer

Check it out here.

(A big thanks to our photographers, Chicago FFL Rob McKersie and New Orleans FFL Jonathan Howe.)

“Those not tied down by suffering are called to help those who are chained by suffering. But they should not think, ‘Behold, I am giving an example’ — that spoils it. Anyone who thinks of the example he will give to others is occupied with things he ought not be doing.” –Dr. Albert Schweitzer

If you attended our 3^rd Annual Fellows for Life Conference, you might have noticed a tall, sandy-haired man with a serious-looking camera snapping shots of you and your peers as they mingled, networked, and attended breakout sessions.

That volunteer photographer (whose album of conference shots we’ll be posting shortly to our Facebook account) was Rob McKersie, MD, a member of the very first class of Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows in 1995-96.

And now—in addition to donating his photographic talents to ASF—he’ll be discussing his career as a champion for social justice at a Nov. 19 Fellows for Life Lecture at Rush University in Chicago.

Brought up in a family of teachers, Dr. McKersie was first drawn to a career in education. Working with inner city youth in Chicago and eighth-graders in East Palo Alto, California, he witnessed the paucity of available health care for disadvantaged students and their families. At mid-life, he was inspired to become a doctor and received his medical degree from Rush University. While a medical student and a Schweitzer Fellow, McKersie worked with Music Theatre Workshop (now Story Catchers Theatre), helping girls in prison create original productions about their lives.

Dr. McKersie became a family physician and for the better part of a decade worked on the South and West sides of Chicago. He currently specializes in treating high-risk obstetrics in inner cities and internationally. He regularly volunteers in Nepal, where he sees patients and teaches physical diagnostic skills to Nepalese healthcare providers.

In 2005, he published a memoir, In The Foothills Of Medicine, A Young Doctor’s Journey From The Inner City Of Chicago To The Mountains of Nepal.

Today, Dr. McKersie serves on the Chicago Schweitzer Advisory Council, and on the board of Himalayan Health Care. He is a spokesman for Physicians for a National Health Program and reviews articles for the Narrative Matters section of Health Affairs. He is a faculty member at the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency Program in Lawrence, MA, and lives in Boxford, MA with his wife Michele and his two children, Robbie and Mia.

Want to talk to Dr. McKersie in person about his experiences? Here are the details on his upcoming Fellows for Life Lecture:

When: Thurs., November 19, 2009 6:00 pm
Where: Rush University Medical Center, 600 S. Paulina, Lecture Hall 540
RSVP to: rsvp@hmprg.org or call 312 372-4292 ext. 24
Free. Light meal will be served. Reservations suggested.



“Hope is renewed each time that you see a person you know, who is deeply involved in the struggle of life, helping another person.” – Dr. Albert Schweitzer