YouDecideRI! New WATCHDOG Website Unveiled on Women's Health Privacy

http://YouDecideRI.blogspot.com : New Website Targeted at the Proposed 24hr Waiting Period Legislation in the RI General Assembly and other Imminent Threats to Women's Health Privacy.

Did you know that in Rhode Island's democratically-controlled legislature,ONLY 12 out of 75 representatives and ONLY 10 out of 38 senators are pro-choice?

Don't let anti-choice legislators decide what is best for you:
We hope YOU will Decide, RI! http://YouDecideRI.blogspot.com

Right now, the Rhode Island General Assembly is considering a mandatory Waiting Period Bill that would seriously undermine physician autonomy and women's rights. This bill requires doctors to provide biased information to women considering an abortion. Furthermore, this bill mandates a 24-hour waiting period before performing an abortion, which will lead to later term, and therefore more dangerous and costly abortions.

Visit our website to learn more about this bill and how to hold your elected officials accountable for votes that impact the lives and well-being of women and girls in Rhode Island. Find Your Elected Officials; Register to Vote and Find Out How To Regsiter to Vote if you are a Student.

To learn more about this bill and about how to make a difference in the lives of women and girls in Rhode Island, please visit http://YouDecideRI.Blogspot.com .

YouDecideRI is a new initiative designed by three Brown Master of Public Health students and a Brown undergraduate student, we look forward to your comments and suggestions. Please feel free to email us youdecideri@gmail.com

of possible interest...

Subject: A Gathering of Brown Alumni Activists
Sunday, Smith Buonanno 106, 1-4pm
Organized by students of ET107: Strategy, Tactics & Tools for Social Change
Join ET107 for a panel discussion and workshops with dynamic alums working for social justice in RI. Presenters include Direct Action for Rights & Equality, Learning Community Charter School, Literacy Resources/RI, Providence Black Repertory Company, Providence Youth Student Movement, Southside Community Land Trust, Youth in Action, and HUD's Tenant Organizing Project

Dr. Jim Kim to Speak at Brown

Brown+Activism

A Conference organized by students of ET 107: Strategy, Tactics and Tools for Social Change Friday, April 27 Breakfast with Dr. Jim Yong Kim '88 8-10am Third World Center Formal Lounge

Dr. Kim, MD, PhD, has been recognized on numerous occasions as a global leader and distinguished professional, including being awarded a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship in 2003; being named one of America's 25 best leaders by US News & World Report in 2005; and being named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2006. He was a contributing editor to the 2003 and 2004 World Health Report, and his edited volume Dying for Growth: Global Inequity and the Health of the Poor analyzes the effects of economic and political change on health outcomes in developing countries. Dr. Kim is the director of the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, and Professor of Medicine and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Health Policy and Advocacy Course

This is an exciting week at Brown. Not only are the magnolias blooming on the Main Green, it is PREREGISTRATION!

I thought you all would be interested in Dr. Lewis's graduate seminar, PHP2720 Health Policy and Advocacy. It is open to medical students. Through guest speakers, field trips, class activities, and an independent advocacy campaign project, students will develop solid backgrounds in health policy and advocacy through practice, not just theory.

I encourage you to go look at the Banner entry for the class. Registration is restricted, so if you are interested, please email Dr. Lewis (David_Lewis@brown.edu) by next Monday and include your banner code. If you have questions about the course, email me Amity_Quinn@brown.edu.

-Amity

Donations to Mae Tao Clinic in Thailand

Dear Friends,

We are two Brown University Master of Public Health students who have been accepted to go spend a summer at Mae Tao Clinic in Thailand. The clinic is located in Mae Sot, on the western border between Thailand and Burma. We will be working with the clinic’s 5 physicians, 100 health workers and 40 support staff to provide free and much needed medical care to an estimated 150,000 refugees, immigrants, landmine victims, and abandoned children, all of whom have been displaced by socio-political oppression, civil war and poverty.

We are writing to let you know about Project Mae Tao, a medical supply drive we are organizing in an effort to bring items that are either too expensive or not available for purchase to the clinic this summer. Mae Tao has provided us with a list, and we are inviting local and affiliated hospitals/clinics to donate specific medical items that require clinical supervision and items that are needed in bulk.

How can YOU help? The clinic is also in need of items that could easily be purchased in a drug store or wholesale stores, or things that might be sitting in your basement not being used. Here are some of them:

- Powder/tablet oral rehydration therapy (HydraLife, Gatorade, etc.)
- Over-the-counter supplements (multivitamins, iron, zinc, calcium, etc.)
- Sterile gauze, bandages, gloves, masks
- Stethoscope (Littman)
- Clinical methods books (History taking and Physical exams)
- Obstetric picture books
- Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine
- Oxford Handbook of Tropical Medicine
- Pharmacology and Medicines books
- The Merck Manual
- Physician’s desktop reference books
- Medical dictionaries (English, English-Thai)

If you are unsure of what to donate, or have any questions about the drive, please feel free to contact either one of us. We will be sending out more information in the next couple weeks with dates, times, and locations for drop-offs. For more information about the clinic, please visit: www.maetaoclinic.org

Thank you in advance for your support. Please help us bring hope to the Mae Tao Clinic.

Peace,

Annie Thacker RN, MPH candidate (Anne_Thacker@brown.edu)
Yumi Aikawa MPH candidate (Yumi_Aikawa@brown.edu)

Free Health fair for Providence Community

WHAT: Free Health fair for Providence Community
WHEN: Saturday April 21 10:00am - 3:00pm
WHERE: The Salvation Army, 386 Broad Street, Providence
WHO: All are welcome and encouraged to attend

The annual health fair, sponsored by Brown Medical students, will be held on Saturday, April 21 at the Salvation Army on Broad St. It is one of the medical school largest outreach events, an opportunity for Providence community members to get valuable health screenings, including blood pressure, lead tests, blood sugar, and HIV testing, while at the same time interacting with various local health and wellness advocacy organizations. Representatives from numerous organizations, including those related to nutrition, domestic violence, substance abuse, family planning, and MORE, will be represented. This is an important event for the community. It has in the past been a tremendous success and promises to be even better this year than it has before. This health fair will ultimately help to empower our communities to be proactive about their health. Free food, raffle prizes, music and games for the children promise to make for a fun and informative experience for the whole family.

Please come out and support and encouarage others to do the same.
THANK YOU!

-Emily

Patient Advocacy Coordinating Council meeting

Last PACC meeting of the year

This Friday, April 20th

12 pm

BioMed Center room 217

Lunch will be served

The Patient Advocacy Coordinating Council (PACC) has as its mission the formation of socially responsible physicians. This is accomplished by fostering opportunities for patient advocacy in the Brown Medical School curriculum and extra-curricular student life. The main avenue for promoting advocacy is helping develop, funding, and collaborating with medical student projects, programs, and organizations that have patient advocacy as the principal objective. PACC is comprised of representatives from existing medical school organizations and its meetings are open to all interested students. PACC may also organize its own events to promote training in advocacy, organizational management, and/or to educate medical students about conditions faced by various populations of patients.

To this end, PACC seeks to connect Brown medical students with community organizations working to address the needs of underserved and marginalized segments of the surrounding Rhode Island community. An additional goal is to foster cooperation among BMS student organizations around patient & community advocacy. Seed grants of up to $500 per project per semester are available to support student-initiated advocacy projects.

Questions? Please contact Kirsten@brown.edu or Margret_Chang@brown.edu. Hope to see you there!

Universal Health Care

There is an opportunity for a few med students to attend a strategic session about changing the system of health care in Rhode Island for the better. Note the "save the date" letter below.

Dear Colleague,
The three of us - David Lewis, Steve Smith, and Nick Tsiongas - invite you to attend an informational session on an exciting plan that can bring universal health care to Rhode Island. The event is being co-sponsored by the National Physicians Alliance and Ocean State Action and will be held at 1 p.m. on Sunday, May 20, at the home of David and Elly Lewis, 165 Blackstone Boulevard, in Providence. Brunch will be served.

Please save the date. We will be sending you a more detailed formal invitation soon. Please respond to this email with a postal address where you would like us to send the invitation. Also, if you have a different email address that you would like us to use, please let us know.

We hope to see you on May 20.

David, Nick, and Steve

The National Physicians Alliance is founded to restore physicians' primary emphasis on the core values of our profession: service, integrity, and advocacy. Ocean State Action is advocacy organization consisting of a wide range of coalition partners working for equality, justice, universal health care, and the common good in Rhode Island.

It would be ideal if 5-6 students were interested, perhaps some of you who worked on RIte Care advocacy. If you want to attend please send me an email and I will make sure that you receive a formal letter of invitation.
David_Lewis@Brown.edu

Next Pizza Brigade--May ???

This is just a reminder to vote for the date of the next Pizza Brigade on our poll (scroll down the blog to find it). The poll will be closed on Friday, April 20, so please make sure to cast your vote soon!

Breeze Against Wheeze Announcement

Breeze Against Wheeze will be holding a 5K Run/3K Walk and Kids' Race on Saturday April, 28th 2007. Proceeds will be used to send kids with asthma to the Community Asthma Program's Asthma Camp organized by the Hasbro Children's Hospital.

The run starts at Pembroke Field (located at the corner of Hope St and Cushing St) and check-in time is at 8:30 AM.

For online registration and more information, please visit http://bms.brown.edu/students/breeze.

Queer Med Celebrates National Day of Silence

Hello Fellow Health Advocates!

This Wednesday, April 18, is the National Day of Silence, which is “an annual event held to bring attention to anti-LGBT bullying, harassment and discrimination in schools.” In its truest form, teachers and students take a vow of silence for the entire day to echo the silence that lgbtq and ally students face everyday. Because we recognize that taking a vow of silence isn’t the most practical thing for a medical student to do (although I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt sometimes :-)), QueerMed is asking all of you to help us recognize the silence that lgbtqa folks face on a daily basis by WEARING BLACK on Wednesday if you or anybody you know has experienced homophobia in your life. This is a simple yet powerful message that allows us all to stand in solidarity in recognizing the discrimination that lgbtqa folks face.

As somebody who still experiences homophobia in my life, it would mean a lot to me to see you wearing black this Wednesday.

Please consider participating. For more information on the National Day of Silence, you can visit their website at http://www.dayofsilence.org/ or simply respond with any questions that you may have.

On a separate and more uplifting note, QueerMed would like to invite you to celebrate pride month by attending the next Queer Grad/Med Wine and Cheese Social, this Friday night from 7-9pm in the LGBTQ Resource Center (Faunce House, Room 321). We hope that you can make it!

As always, we appreciate all of your support.

Jason and Andrea

Drug Policy Conference

Brown University Students for Sensible Drug Policy will be hosting the Northeast Regional SSDP Conference this weekend to discuss the failure of the War on Drugs and policy alternatives. Students will hear from speakers such as former Rhode Island senator Lincoln Chaffee, international drug policy reform leader Ethan Nadelmann, Brown Professor Glenn Loury, and noted author Daniel Pinchbeck. In addition, the conference will feature panel discussions and activist workshops.

A panel that may be interest to all of you is "Health System and Policy Reform" on Saturday, April 14th 11:30am-12:45pm in Macmillan 117. Drs. David Lewis and Jody Rich are part of the panel which will discuss how medical professionals and politicians can work together to change drug policy from a punitive to a medical paradigm.

The full schedule is available at http://ssdp.org/northeast.

Hope to see some of you there!

-Amity

Brown Amnesty International Events

Interested in human rights, war, torture, or detainee health? If so, check out the Brown Amnesty International web site for more information on their April event series "The America I Believe In: Human Rights and the War on Terror." Here's a brief sampling:

"Guantanamo and Beyond - US Lawlessness in the 'War on Terror'" Address by Jumana Musa Monday, April 9. Barus & Holley 166. 7pm

Talk by Susan Burke and Screening of the Film "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib." Tuesday, April 10. MacMillan Hall 115. 7:30pm

"War, Violence and States of Exception" Discussion with Professor Bogues. Wednesday, April 11. Joukowsky Forum, 111 Thayer Street. 7:30pm

Visit their web site: http://students.brown.edu/AI/

Is Health Advocacy "Sexy?"

Okay, now that I've gotten your attention, I have to admit that this post is only very indirectly about sex.

Last Wednesday, Brown University was host to a presentation by Dr. Les Roberts, lead author of a Lancet study that estimates 655,000 Iraqi deaths since the 2003 American invasion of Iraq. This number is in stark contrast with the latest Pentagon count of 50,000 Iraqi civilian dead, and as such, it has generated much controversy--resulting in a public rejection by the Bush administration even as reports emerge of the British government acknowledging the study's accuracy.

Oddly enough, this controversy is one that's been largely ignored by the American press...

Roberts made many interesting points during his lecture at Brown, but some of his best insights came during the long question and answer session that followed. "Mortality statistics aren't a very sexy topic, he admitted. "It's what I call a fundamental topic--a category that includes activities of daily living, number of births, and the quality of our health care. The press is simply not very interested in covering 'fundamentals,' but unfortunately, these topics are really what society should be concerned about."

I thought this comment was particularly relevant for everyone involved in health advocacy. After all, it seems that we spend every waking moment involved with 'fundamentals'--i.e., taking care of the sick and making sure the healthy stay well. Yet, the success of our efforts to raise public awareness or to effect social change is very much linked to our ability to make a fundamental topic "sexy" enough to catch media attention. As Roberts' experience shows, even the most groundbreaking data can quickly be buried and ignored if this media outreach fails to take place.

The solution for making a fundamental topic "sexier" is nothing new. Indeed, Roberts mentioned that pictures and stories will always speak louder than statistical data and that this point holds true for the media and the public. As health advocates, it is very important that we don't forget this crucial fact. The truth is, we need to become more skilled at documenting and chronicling our experiences in the clinic or in everyday encounters related to health. Until we do so, the issues and patients we advocate for risk being forgotten and ignored by the public and the decision makers we need to reach.

-Margret

To view Dr. Les Roberts' lecture, please visit: https://email.brown.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://watsoninstitute.org/news_detail.cfm?id=599

Putting a Face on the Uninsured

A few days ago, a physician by the name of Dr. Perry Klaassen made headlines for writing an essay in the March 14th edition of JAMA that compared his own experience with colon cancer with that of one of his patients. His story was simple but poignant. Klaassen had health insurance and survived his bout with cancer. His patient, Shirley Searcy, had no health insurance and died a year and a half after her diagnosis.

Klaassen's story is not new. But before you start wondering why the AP News Wire chose to feature it, just remember that his perspective--that of a physician comparing his illness experience with a patient's--is still relatively rare.

The take home message to med students, physicians, and other health professionals? Simple. Speak out and write about your personal experience and struggles with health care. We're all patients at one time or another, so let's use that to our advantage...

To read about Perry Klaassen:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/04/04/uninsured.dead.ap/index.html

***Note: Are you inspired by Dr. Klaassen? If so, go out and help lobby the state legislature to restore cuts to the RIte Care program for kids without health insurance! The lobby date is on Wednesday, April 11. ***

Please see the Advocacy Events Calendar for more information about the RIte Care lobby:
http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=brownhelpinghand%40gmail.com

Hidden Lessons from the Advocacy Pizza Brigade

Just a couple of hours ago, I was on the phone with Dr. David Lewis, a professor in Brown's Program of Public Health and the host of the next Pizza Brigade, when he made the following remark about past advocacy pizza gatherings:

"It's all well and good for faculty to keep on talking and spinning their wheels about their own advocacy work, but I don't feel like I've gotten the chance to hear about what students are up to. We need to do a better job shifting the focus back on students."

Sure, it's a fair enough comment--one that made me think back to all the reasons why it's tough for student advocates to talk about what they do or why they're interested in certain issues. For one thing, health advocacy is such a broad field, encompassing everything from problems in the clinic to challenges at an economic, social, or political level. In addition, it seems like there's always something to learn or some action to take, and with so much going on, things can easily get overwhelming. And of course, there's always the dampening effect that exams and class projects have on anything unrelated to schoolwork. With all the responsibilites that come along with being a student, who has time to reflect on the systemic changes that need to be made to help the uninsured patient at the free clinic or to get more people to stop smoking?

Yet, such reflection, whether you write it down or keep it in your head, is crucial. At the very least, it can help you figure out more precisely what you're interested in--much less how to talk about it. Learning how to tell people about abstract ideas and half-baked projects can be tough to do, but it is certainly a useful skill that will make you a better advocate for whatever cause you choose.

As students, we're introduced to health advocacy-related issues everywhere--in the classroom, the clinic, and even in our day-to-day interactions with other people. Be aware when some issue catches your attention, and remember to ask yourself why you're so interested in it. This will not only help you talk about your ideas, but also open the door for students and faculty to identify ways to help you with your work.

So after this long-winded post, I want to leave everyone (particularly other students) with two points:

1) Come to the Advocacy Pizza Brigade (see my earlier post). You get free food and a chance to practice talking about your ideas with other student and faculty health advocates.

2) Take a minute to reflect on personal experiences that have shaped your interests and the course you'd like to take as a health advocate. Feel free to share these thoughts with others.

That's all for now. Hope to see some of you on April 12!

- Margret

Advocacy Updates

1) Advocacy Pizza Brigade

A return of what has become a popular event. Please join us for a chance to mingle with other students and faculty and to learn more about ongoing health advocacy efforts at Brown.

When: Thursday, April 12; 7-9 pm
Where: The house of Dr. David Lewis; 165 Blackstone Blvd. (white house with red shutters)

***Please RSVP to margret_chang@brown.edu by Friday, April 6 if you're interested in attending***

2) Advocacy Concentration Meeting

This meeting is for those who have decided to pursue a Scholarly Concentration in Advocacy. We will be updating each other on our individual projects as well as deciding what sorts of workshops and advocacy experiences to participate in as a group. Faculty and upperclassmen are also welcome to come.
When: Wednesday, April 18 at 4-5 pm (potential date and time)
Where: TBA

***Please email me if you can come or if you'd like me to try to change the date***