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Community service
FleetBoston program rewards Med School alumni for social responsibility
FleetBoston has accepted nine Brown University Medical School alumni into its Community Fellows Program, an education loan repayment program for civic-minded physicians.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — As part of a unique partnership
between Brown University and FleetBoston, nine Brown Medical School graduates
will receive a total of $100,000 to help repay their education loans – and
continue their community service work.
Consistent with the Medical School’s mission of training
socially responsible physicians, the Community Fellows Program each year rewards
graduates who regularly volunteer, treat underserved populations, advocate for
better health policy or otherwise “serve the greater good of our
communities.”
Established three years ago with support from the FleetBoston
Financial Foundation, the program aims to promote community service careers in
health care. Each year, five to 10 graduates each receive up to $20,000 toward
loan repayment.
Past recipients have treated the poor in places ranging from the
mountains of Mexico to housing projects in the Bronx. Others have researched
cancer rates among African-Americans, fought the closure of a public health
clinic serving Latinos, and advocated for policies to eliminate health
disparities for all minorities.
In cities stretching from Providence to San Francisco, this
year’s Community Fellows work in hospitals, clinics and even a prison. The
new fellows are:
- Scott Allen (M.D. ‘91) Allen is a primary care physician to
adult inmates for the State Department of Corrections in Cranston, R.I. He is
responsible for the oversight and treatment evaluation of patients with
hepatitis C. He is a clinical assistant professor for Brown Medical School at
The Miriam Hospital and precepts the family practice rotation and clinics at the
Department of Corrections. He serves on the boards of directors of Project AIDS
Khmer, the Meeting Street School and About Families. Allen was named a Community
Fellow in 2002.
- Sonya Dominguez (M.D. ‘02) Dominguez is a resident in St.
Vincent’s Family Practice Residency Program in Jacksonville, Fla. St.
Vincent’s mission is to serve the vulnerable and poor. She is active with
community clinics at a local homeless shelter and the Mobile Outreach Health
Ministry, a doctor’s office on wheels that provides free care to the poor.
She is a Special Olympics volunteer and brought Reach Out and Read, a national
pediatric literacy program, to St. Vincent’s.
- Jini H. Han (M.D. ‘97) Han is an attending physician in the
Department of Internal Medicine at John Stroger Hospital of Cook County
(formerly Cook County Hospital) in Chicago, where she serves mostly uninsured,
poor minority patients. She is also an internal medicine instructor at Rush
Medical College. Han is a member of the Asian Health Coalition of Illinois, a
community-based organization that provides advocacy, resources and education on
health issues. She is a co-founder of the Asian Health Research Interest Group of
Chicago and is actively involved with the American Cancer Society’s
Medical Ambassadors Program and the Working Group for Health Issues.
- Ellen D. Herbst (M.D. ‘02) Herbst is a resident at the
Shuman-Liles Clinic in Oakland, Calif., where she provides medical management
and supportive psychiatric services to low-income residents of Alameda County.
She leads post-traumatic stress disorder education and psychotherapy groups for
Vietnamese refugees and combat veterans and is involved in a research study
investigating therapeutic and pharmacological techniques for treating the
disorder. She also works with Physicians for Human Rights.
- Shuba Kamath (M.D. ‘00) Kamath is a general academic fellow in
the Division of General Pediatrics at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York
City, which serves predominantly low-income minority families, many of whom are
recent immigrants. Her research targets childhood obesity in East Harlem. She
incorporated community advocacy experiences, such as health education outreach
at a local high school, into training for Mount Sinai residents.
- Sara J. Newmann (M.D. ‘99) Newmann is completing her combined
residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women’s and
Massachusetts General hospitals. This summer, she begins work as an ob-gyn with
the Chelsea and Revere Health Centers in the Boston area, caring for a largely
poor female population that includes Latinas and African-Americans. Newmann has
committed much of her time to serving immigrants in community health centers.
She is a member of the Global Health Committee of the Massachusetts Medical
Society and a health educator for the Indian Medical Association of New England.
- Dawn M. Richardson (M.D. ‘88) Richardson has worked as an
emergency physician in Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts for the last
14 years, as well as serving as captain in the Air National Guard. She is an
attending staff physician in the Emergency Department at Roger Williams Medical
Center in Providence. She has a long history of community involvement, with a
focus on domestic violence victims. Richardson is on the board of directors of
Women’s Center of Rhode Island and the medical advisory board of the Rhode
Island Department of Motor Vehicles. She has served as medical director for Fall
River Fire and Rescue and Emergency Medical Services of New England.
- Jin S. Suh (M.D. ‘92) Suh works at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt
Hospital Center in New York where he is the director of clinical research at The
Center for Comprehensive Care, an associate attending physician in the
Infectious Disease Division, and an associate program director for the Internal
Medicine Residency Training Program. Under his direction, the Center for
Comprehensive Care has initiated community outreach programs for HIV prevention,
services for women and children, and a syringe access program. He is also an
advocate for health care access for HIV prisoners and works with Doctors of the
World’s human rights clinic project.
- Shannon M. Thyne (M.D. ‘95) Thyne is an assistant clinical
professor in the Department of Pediatrics at San Francisco General
Hospital/University of California. She is medical director of the
Children’s Health Center, which serves young people facing poverty and
violence in the family and community. She also coordinates the Kempe Clinic,
providing primary care for high-risk children and co-directs the local chapter
of the national pediatric literacy program Reach Out and Read. She sits on the
board of directors of the Child Abuse Prevention Center and the Yes We Can Urban
Asthma Partnership and acts as medical consultant for the City of San
Francisco’s Child Protective Services.
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