Downs fellows cover the world

On topics ranging from nutrition to contraception, students presented their research in October.

For the first half of his 10-week stay in Eldoret, Kenya, last summer, Timothy Mercer just hung out. “I had to earn some credibility and trust,” said Mercer, a 2008 Downs fellow who was studying street children in the western Kenyan city. His hanging out paid off. “I never felt so privileged to be let into a social group.”

Mercer, a public health student, described his research in an oral presentation at the annual fall symposium of The Committee on International Health—which awards the Downs International Health Student Travel Fellowship. Eighteen students in nursing, medicine, public health and the Physician Associate Program spent the summer conducting research abroad. Two other Downs fellows were planning to travel early this year. The students’ projects explored such topics as nutrition and food security in Uganda, barriers to drug treatment in Cairo, emergency contraception in South Africa, circumcision as a means of preventing HIV/AIDS infection in Peru, and patients’ attitudes toward health care in Indonesia.

In Eldoret, Mercer’s local faculty advisor at Moi University, David Ayuku, M.D., had found that about two-thirds of the city’s estimated 2,000 street children go home at night. Most find it easier to get food and money on the street than at home. But on the street they are at high risk for HIV/AIDS infection and drug addiction. “Just being a street child places you at a greater health disadvantage,” Mercer said.

Rosha Forman, a student in nursing and midwifery, also spent time getting to know her subjects as she studied how Zambian midwives handled the third stage of labor—the period between delivery and expulsion of the placenta. “You want the placenta to come out and you want it to come out quickly—other-wise you are at risk of hemorrhage,” Forman said, adding that postpartum hemorrhaging is a leading cause of maternal death in the developing world. Forman visited four hospitals and seven clinics and interviewed 14 midwives. “I did a lot of sitting and chatting with the midwives,” she said.

Lauren Graber, a medical student, traveled to Kampala, Uganda, at the request of a physician there who was concerned that a local landfill might be the source of high blood lead levels in children. “This is a perfect example of partnered research, answering a question that your host country asks,” said Michele Barry, M.D., HS ’77, professor of medicine and public health and former director of the Yale/Johnson & Johnson Physician Scholars in Inter-national Health Program. Graber, working with five Ugandan medical students and a medical student from Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, tested 165 children and visited 122 homes. High blood lead levels, the students found, were correlated less with proximity to the landfill than with consumption of canned foods and living along busy roads. “We really need to learn more about how kids are being exposed to lead in Kampala,” Graber said.

—John Curtis

For more on the Downs fellowship, see “Science and Culture in a Strange Land.”

Auction raises $32,000 for New Haven-area charities for the hungry and homeless

“Girls’ Night Out: Join Drs. Bia, Angoff, Vining and Hansson to enjoy a dinner and the sharing of gossip and wisdom. No Y Chromosomes, please.”

A group of second-year students, including auction co-chair Marie A. Rymut, bought this evening with four female faculty for $650 at the 16th Annual Hunger & Homelessness Auction on November 13. The auction, a traditional blend of fun and charity, raised $32,000 for several charitable organizations in the New Haven area.

“This is about giving back,” said auctioneer Wade Brubacher, a professional from Kansas and father of third-year medical student Jacob Brubacher, in his third appearance at the event. “You won’t make much money at it, but you’ll feel good.”

Since its inauguration as an afternoon event in Harkness Auditorium, the auction has expanded to include a week of activities that include a football game between first- and second-year medical students, a performance of chamber music, a panel discussion on hunger and homelessness and film screenings. The week ends with silent and live auctions in Harkness Ballroom and Marigold’s.

Among the available items at the silent auction were works of art, services by students and faculty, dinners at homes and restaurants, quilts, jewelry, “Mediterranean Dinner & Debauchery,” concert tickets and homemade brownies.

The live auction opened with a perennial favorite, bidding on a bow tie (“Smells faintly of formaldehyde”) contributed by William B. Stewart, Ph.D., associate professor of surgery (gross anatomy), who has taught the basics of anatomy to first-year students for decades. The tie fetched $500 from the first-year class in the Physician Associate Program, who outbid their medical school rivals.

This year’s proceeds will be donated to Christian Community Action, Columbus House, Community Soup Kitchen, Domestic Violence Services, Junta for Progressive Action, Loaves and Fishes, New Haven Home Recovery and Youth Continuum.

—John Curtis

At annual White Coat Ceremony, students kick off their medical careers

The 100 students in the Class of 2012 include 51 women and 49 men, 24 graduates of Harvard and Yale, 24 members of ethnic or racial groups underrepresented in medicine and 26 who were born outside of the United States. They were selected from 4,139 applicants, and 46 took time off after college to pursue advanced degrees or research, health care consulting, teaching or volunteer work. “Many have been involved with health care programs in various parts of the country or other parts of the world,” said Richard A. Silverman, director of admissions. “This class has real depth of experience and a lot of talent. … It’s a pretty hard class to beat.”

At this year’s White Coat Ceremony in August, Dean Robert J. Alpern, M.D., Ensign Professor of Medicine, welcomed the new students with thoughts on the Yale system of medical education, whose tenets include no grades in the first two years or class rankings. “Were we trying to make it easier for you as students?” he asked. “The answer is that we expect greater things from you than grades could ever engender. We expect you to become leaders in the medical world of tomorrow.”

Frederick D. Haeseler, M.D., director of primary care clerkships and associate clinical professor of medicine, reflected on the art of medicine in the ceremony’s keynote speech. Defining medicine as having both human and scientific components, he said, “When physicians connect these two, they are practicing the art of medicine.”

Why did students choose the School of Medicine? For Ken Hui, who received his undergraduate degree at Yale, it was the people. “I thought they’d be really nice and really interesting and that’s definitely turned out to be the case since I’ve been here,” he said.

Sounok Sen, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, said it was the Yale system, which emphasizes a unique student-faculty collegiality and individual responsibility. “I wanted to use those values to learn medicine,” Sen said. Smiling, he added, “I think we have a good group. It’ll be a fun time.”

—Charles Gershman


			Originally published in Yale Medicine, Winter 2009. Copyright © 2009 Yale University School of Medicine. All rights reserved.