This session was part of Day one of the 2021 Humanism and Healing Conference: Structural Racism and Its Impact on Medicine, hosted by the Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS).
This session will give us an understanding about the essential role that community health centers, including FQHCs and free and charitable clinics, have in building a healthy community, give us an understanding around what social factors people living in underserved communities grapple with and how community health centers are working innovatively to address them, and identify a blueprint forward that builds health equity. Aims and Scope: 1) Gain an understanding about the essential role that community health centers, including FQHCs and free and charitable clinics, have in building a healthy community. 2) Gain an understanding around what social factors people living in underserved communities grapple with and how community health centers are working innovatively to address them. 3) Identify a blueprint forward that builds health equity.
The speakers:
Louisa Tvito, MSW, is the Director of the Gold Humanism Honor Society and Program Initiatives at the Arnold P. Gold Foundation.
Louisa holds a Master’s Degree from Fordham University in Social Work and spent the early portion of her career working with individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.
Louisa has been working with the Gold Foundation since 2016 and has found meaning in forming connections with the Gold Community and its GHHS members, as well as in creating programming that promotes the Foundation’s mission.
Outside of work, Louisa enjoys art, fitness, and being a mom.
Mardge Cohen, MD, is a Medical Director, Women Equity in AIDS Care and Treatment-Rwanda (WE-ACTx), practicing physician at Boston Health Care for the Homeless, and Founder of the Women and Children HIV Program at Cook County Hospital, Chicago. Dr. Cohen received the inaugural Pearl Birnbaum Hurwitz Humanism in Healthcare Award in 2015.
Dinali Fernando, MD, MPH, is a Medical Director of the Libertas Center for Human Rights, a program of the Emergency Medicine Department at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York; an emergency medicine physician at Elmhurst Hospital; and an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The Pearl Birnbaum Hurwitz Humanism in Healthcare Award was presented to Dr. Fernando in 2018.
Nancy Oriol, MD, is a renowned anesthesiologist, innovator, educator, and pioneer in mobile medicine. Her creation of The Family Van, and her leadership in studying and spreading mobile health clinics to countless other cities, has successfully delivered care to underserved populations, eased such barriers to care as cost, transportation, stigma, and fear, and educated trainees about culturally competent care and healthcare disparities. Dr. Oriol was the 2019 Pearl Birnbaum Hurwitz Humanism in Healthcare Award winner.
Veda Johnson, MD, is an associate professor and general pediatrician at Emory University School of Medicine and Director of Emory University Pediatric Department’s major youth advocacy initiative, Partners for Equity in Child and Adolescent Health. Dr. Johnson was the 2017 Pearl Birnbaum Hurwitz Humanism in Healthcare Award winner.
