Schweitzer Fellows for Life Jessie Evangelista and Janet Trang created a program pairing families with a baby in neonatal intensive care with a family that had successfully brought home a baby after a stay in neonatal intensive care. Evangelista and Trang, both students at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, partnered with the Fletcher Allen Health Center for their project. Evangelista shared some of what she learned through the experience with Beyond Boulders. 

A: I had my first exposure to babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) when I was in grammar school. The school bus used to drop my sister and me off at the hospital where my mother worked. Without fail, I would ask my mom to take us to see the babies in the NICU after work. A few years ago, I began volunteering as a cuddler at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital (MSCHONY) in New York City. With over 70 babies in the NICU at any given time, there was always at least one baby that needed someone to hold them, sing to them, or read them a bedtime story. While volunteering at MSCHONY, I had the opportunity to hold babies born more than 18 weeks early and weighing less than a pound at birth. When I started medical school at the University of Vermont College of Medicine in August 2011, I immediately asked how I could get involved in the NICU, and within two months I was a cuddler. When Janet and I were developing this project, I wanted to merge the passion that I have for working with babies with the genuine need that I saw in the babies and families in the NICU. Reading through the projects that all of the Schweitzer Fellows have developed, it is easy to see that life is filled with struggles. With all that life can throw at us, nothing compares to coming into this world already at a disadvantage. The babies that Janet and I worked with were struggling just to breathe, eat, and maintain their temperature. Our Schweitzer Fellowship has been an incredibly humbling experience for me. It reminds me each and every day that something as simple as my time can make a world of difference.

A: Janet and I created a Parent Matching Program to pair NICU graduate families to current NICU families and a medical student Cuddling Program. While the focus of this Schweitzer Fellowship is the immediate implementation these two programs, in the future, we will be relying on current first year medical students and the NICU staff to carry on and manage these programs. The hope is that years down the road, families currently being mentored will have become mentors themselves, and that their mentees will go on to do the same.

A: My gut reaction to this question was accessibility and affordability of healthcare. I think, however, that there is another issue at hand that was summed up well by Dr. Ariel Pablos, Managing Director at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, when she said, “Too often the global health community has focused on disease- and population-specific programs, rather than on strengthening health systems as a whole. Such neglect has led to fragmentation and inequitable financing for general health services.” While there are incredible programs based on the treatment of specific diseases and populations, there is a need for a more widespread approach to healthcare. I believe that a reorganization and reallocation of our existing resources across the entire healthcare community would be more beneficial than having many small groups, all trying to tackle different diseases and problems individually.

A: Most people are surprised to hear that I have volunteered close to 1,500 hours in Neonatal Intensive Care Units and nearly 400 hours since beginning medical school. What I find most surprising, however, is that the babies and families I worked with gave more to me than I could ever give them. In the first two years of medical school, it is easy to get caught up in the everyday stresses, but working with premature babies is a constant reminder of why I ever wanted to be a doctor in the first place. 

A: I had an incredible experience as a Schweitzer Fellow. This has been largely due to the constant inspiration and support of The Vermont and New Hampshire Schweitzer Fellows. To me, being a Schweitzer Fellow for Life means that I will have an opportunity to impact my peers and successors, not just on my own, but as part of a larger entity.

Schweitzer Fellow for Life James R. Carter, MPH, a doctoral student at The Ohio State University College of Social Work, realized that there was little awareness of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) among the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender population. HPV is the most common sexually-transmitted infection and it impacts both men and women. While not everyone who is infected with HPV gets ill, those who do get ill can experience quite serious symptoms ranging from genital warts to certain cancers. The more he learned about HPV, the more Carter wanted to make raising awareness of the infection the focus of his Schweitzer Fellow Project.

A: I was approached by a member of my community about a very personal experience that had inspired him to want to do more. We discussed the idea of doing a very grassroots program to get a conversation started in the gay and lesbian community of Central Ohio about the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). As we thought about our own personal knowledge, and asked some of our friends about their knowledge of HPV we realized very few people are aware of this emerging health concern. It was at that time that I heard about The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship and realized it was the perfect outlet for this type of project. Thus the project was developed, submitted, and accepted. 

A: I hope that the lasting impact of my project will be a couple key things. The first is that a conversation is started and awareness created about HPV and its potential role in later in life conditions. In age groups where it is appropriate, our city provides services for vaccination against HPV through my partnering agency, Columbus Public Health. So we are empowering people with not only information, but services that protect them.

The other lasting impact I hope the program has is an increase on the participant's ability to find information about health conditions and be critical consumers of the information that they find. Within the context of HPV, the program is empowering participants with skills applicable to a wide range of health conditions and related decision-making. 

A: I think the most pressing health issue of our time is actually the Internet. And I know that this answer may cause some people to say, ‘What?,’ but the Internet is such a conduit of information dissemination, as well as behavioral facilitation. In other research I have conducted the Internet has quickly established a central-role in facilitating much of our human interaction, both virtually and physically. There is the issue of so much information, so quickly available to people, and the program I am conducting takes aim at this by guiding participants through trusted sources of information (i.e., the CDC) and accessible sources of critical services (i.e., vaccination at places like Columbus Public Health). 

A: I think the most surprising element of my experience thus far has been a number of things. My mentor Dr. Randi Love, and site facilitator Dr. Audrey Regan, have been such amazing advocates for me, and provided such valuable assistance. Early on the original conception of the project was not working as efficiently as it could, and with their assistance we were able to quickly change the look of the project. This has ultimately made the project vastly more impactful, reaching more community members and in a more meaningful way, I believe. Also the experience of meeting with the other Fellows has provided many opportunities to look at my project differently and consider different ways that change is created. 

A: I am really excited to expand my exposure to the Schweitzer legacy by joining the Fellows for Life program at the conclusion of my program. Being a part of such a group of driven people, and dynamic views on social problems will be inspiring and provide me motivation to keep looking around and trying to figure out how to answer the problems that our society faces.

Schweitzer Fellows for Life Henry Gerard Colmer and Bryan Neth are medical students at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Last year, partnering with both the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and the Alzheimer's Association, they created an eight- to 10-week cognitive and behavioral program for people living with Alzheimer’s disease.  

Bryan: We ultimately decided to focus on the geriatric population, as we felt this is a population that can be easily overlooked. Our project mentors, Drs. Kaycee Sink and Morgan Bain, helped us narrow our focus to individuals living with Alzheimer's disease and dementia. The very nature of these disorders (memory loss and cognitive impairment) leaves this population vulnerable. Both Gerad and I have previously seen the profound effects of dementia on both the patients and caregivers in clinic and in the community. Personally, serving those with dementia is very important, as I would ultimately like to receive training in Neurology and Dementia, and perform research to improve our understanding of these diseases in hopes of prevention and cure. As a second year medical student, to see this disease process and its effects on a weekly basis helps in my personal understanding of dementia and will surely impact my future work.

Gerard: We have worked with the gerontology interest group at Wake Forest School of Medicine to make our eight- to 10-week program part of their organization to help ensure that even while the individuals who attend Wake Forest may change with the passing years our program will continue on as new students fill the ranks of the gerontology interest group. 

Gerard: I would argue that the most pressing health-related issue of our time is the lack of access to health care that many individuals are facing. It’s a multifaceted issue that encompasses a wide variety of concerns that need to be addressed including health care costs, the rising number of uninsured/under-insured individuals, insufficient practitioners in certain geographic regions, as well as the lack of educational resources individuals need to empower them to make informed decisions about their health.

Bryan: I think the aging population of the United States will be the most pressing health-related issue of our time. The sheer number of Baby Boomers combined with the gaps in our knowledge of the aging process will present formidable challenges. The beauty of medicine is that when it works well individuals are able to live longer, healthier lives. This is great, yet in the history of the human population we have not lived as long as we do in the present. There will be disease processes, like Alzheimer’s disease, that will increase in incidence/prevalence. We will also see the long-term management of chronic conditions already facing our population. 

Gerard: I have been pleasantly surprised at how eager and motivated the group participants have been in engaging in the various activities that we facilitate in our small group sessions. Also, based upon the task at hand you will often witness an individual who is ‘higher functioning’ in the domain that the task requires act to help the ‘lower functioning’ individuals. This really creates a special environment where, even though we are pushing them to ‘exercise their brains’ which can be very taxing, we all often end up laughing together and having a good time. The strength and resilience displayed, especially by the higher functioning individuals who are more self-aware of their cognitive decline, is very humbling and remarkable.

Bryan: I was surprised to see the enthusiasm of our participants for our activities. From our first session we were able to engage most of participants and their enjoyment shows at the end of our sessions. This observation has been consistent through our sessions. I am truly grateful for the enthusiasm and enjoyment of our participants, as this illustrates that we are having some impact in the community we chose to serve. 

Gerard: The core belief system of the Schweitzer Fellowship pertaining to service and the innate desire to improve the lives of those in our community is among one of the largest driving forces that led me to pursue a career in medicine and similarly has led me to pursue acceptance into the Schweitzer Fellowship program. As a medical student it is all too easy to fall into the grind of lectures and preparation for exams and forget why we started this whole journey in the first place. 

Bryan: I would never have imagined that as a second year medical student I would have had the opportunity to co-lead a service project for a patient population that I seek to work with professionally. The various trainings, discussions with other Fellows, guidance, and overall structure of the Schweitzer Fellowship fostered the development of our Brain Fitness Program, and the Schweitzer Fellowship has provided me with a set of skills that will be useful in my career in developing future service projects. 

Schweitzer Fellow Brooke Starkoff, a graduate student at Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology, partnered with the YMCA of Central Ohio to make routine exercise fun for kids. Although nearly none of her students had heard of the sport of triathlon—races that see competitors swimming, biking, and running in one race—before Brooke introduced them to it, they were all “incredibly excited” to train for an indoor race. 

 

A: I believe most kids truly enjoy being active, but do not always have the opportunity to participate in physical activity. I wanted to offer a fun, low-pressure program in which these children can participate and feel part of a bigger group. For me, as a child and an adult, physical activity has been instrumental in maintaining health as well as developing confidence and pride. A sport like triathlon offers these kids the opportunity to accomplish a goal, which many of them never believed they could achieve.

A: I sincerely hope these children will be reminded of how much fun it is to be active. I would love for them to walk away from this program with a greater interest in taking care of their health. Even more so, I hope they have a stronger sense of self and become more aware of all they are able to achieve.

A: I truly believe that obesity, both in adults and children, is the most pressing health related issue. It is particular frightening in children, due to the greater number of years they are exposed to the negative impacts caused by obesity. The fact that we are seeing a significant number of children with Type 2 Diabetes and early indicators of cardiovascular disease is alarming. This generation of children will grow to be very sick adults if we do not intervene and make changes. We must help reintroduce regular physical activity to our children and work to offer them healthier food options both at school and at home.

A: Many of the children I am working with are incredibly excited to exercise with me and are looking forward to the indoor triathlon. This surprises me because many of these children have never before participated in or even seen a triathlon. It is great to hear them talk about the upcoming race and watch how hard they push themselves during our time together. I am incredibly proud of all of their efforts. 


A: It is truly an honor to be associated with the Albert Schweitzer name. Albert Schweitzer lived his life helping others, not as an obligatory chore, but as a way of being and I strive to do the same. Since my first day as a Schweitzer Fellow I have felt great pride in my project and in the hopes that I can make a difference in the lives of these children. However, I also feel that being a Schweitzer Fellow involves more than my kids’ triathlon project. I too feel the “reverence for life” and strive to continue to create change and make a difference. 

In 2011, Lambaréné Fellows Laura M. Blinkhorn and Mascha A. Davis met a young woman at The Albert Schweitzer Hospital. Just 26-years old, she was suffering from blinding headaches and a burning pain in her chest. It turns out that Marie, an otherwise energetic and ambitious entrepreneur (she ran a busy food stall selling beignets), was suffering from high blood pressure, gastric reflux, and high blood sugar. She was also significantly overweight. In a “Narrative Matters” column for the health policy journal Health Affairs, Blinkhorn and Davis, recount their attempts to work with Marie about nutrition, and their reaction to Marie’s condition: 

Health Affairs has made the full article, “Tackling the Weight of the World: What One African Woman Taught Us About Global Obesity,” available online. You can read it here.