Rethinking Advocacy in Medicine Conference

06/20/2019

Advocacy in Action! Photos Courtesy of Kinjal Vasavada and Antonio Laracuente

06/20/2019

Photos Courtesy of Kinjal Vasavada and Tony Laracuente

Advocacy in Action! Photos Courtesy of Kinjal Vasavada and Antonio Laracuente

05/11/2019

...And we're off with opening remarks! Follow us for more live, play by play updates. We'll be updating here as we move through the program.

“"An advocate is a storyteller working on behalf of another." ”

05/11/2019

TODAY is the day! Follow us for updates on Twitter and check out our website sites.tufts.edu/rethinkingadvocacyinmedicine for directions, speaker info, and program! We can't wait to see you today.

About The Boston Student Health Activist Community (BSHAC) is a group of impassioned students from Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM), Tufts University School of Dentistry, Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), and Harvard School of Medicine who share a mission to create a space where...

05/10/2019

The Rethinking Advocacy in Medicine Conference is TOMORROW! In preparation for the conference, we’ve featured some of our speakers and organizers on this page. Today, we’re featuring Dr. John McDonough, one of the breakout session leaders.

For tomorrow's conference, stay connected with us via our live-tweets ! Please check out our conference website for directions, more speaker information, and program times @ sites.tufts.edu/rethinkingadvocacyinmedicine

Come TOMORROW, May 11th @ Tufts University School of Medicine!
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John E. McDonough, DrPH, MPA is a professor of practice at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in the Department of Health Policy & Management. Between 2008 and 2010, he served as a Senior Advisor on National Health Reform to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions where he worked on the writing and passage of the Affordable Care Act. Between 2003 and 2008, he was Executive Director of Health Care For All, Massachusetts’ consumer health advocacy organization where he played a leading role in the passage of the 2006 Massachusetts Health Reform Law. From 1998 through 2003, he was an associate professor at the Heller School at Brandeis University. From 1985 to 1997, he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives where he co-chaired the Joint Committee on Health Care.

His articles have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs and other journals. He has written: Inside National Health Reform in 2011 and Experiencing Politics: A Legislator’s Stories of Government and Health Care in 2000, both by the University of California Press and the Milbank Fund, and Interests, Ideas, and Deregulation: The Fate of Hospital Rate Setting in 1998 by the University of Michigan Press. He holds a doctorate in public health from the University of Michigan and a master’s in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harva

05/09/2019

We can't wait to see you on Saturday for the Rethinking Advocacy in Medicine Conference. Please visit our event website at sites.tufts.edu/RethinkingAdvocacyinMedicine for the schedule, a complete list of speakers and directions to the MedEd Building.

Follow us on Twitter for live tweets of the event, too!
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Registration and breakfast will start at 8:30am on Saturday. The last session will wrap up at 5pm. The address of where we will be in the morning is 145 Harrison Ave, which is the Medical Education (MedEd) Building. Breakfast will include coffee, tea, fruit, and pastries (vegan options). Lunch is from Pita Kebob and will be fully vegetarian, with vegan options as well.

Water bottles will NOT be provided. Please bring your own water bottle!

We are trying to make this event as accessible as possible. If you have any concerns about specific accommodations, please reach out to us.

About The Boston Student Health Activist Community (BSHAC) is a group of impassioned students from Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM), Tufts University School of Dentistry, Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), and Harvard School of Medicine who share a mission to create a space where...

05/09/2019

The Rethinking Advocacy in Medicine Conference is now 3 short days away! In preparation for the conference, we’ve be featuring some of our speakers and organizers on this page. In this post, we’re featuring Dr. Megan Sandel, who will be leading our Case Simulation.

If you haven’t registered already, you can at tinyurl.com/RAIM2019, and if you have, share the event widely on your networks! Tag your friends that haven’t registered and come on May 11th @ Tufts University School of Medicine!
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Megan Sandel, MD, MPH, is Associate Director of the GROW clinic at Boston Medical Center, Principal Investigator with Children’s HealthWatch and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine and Boston University School of Public Health. She is the former pediatric medical director of Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, and is a nationally recognized expert on housing and child health. In 1998, she published with other doctors at Boston Medical Center, the DOC4Kids report, a national report on how housing affected child health, the first of its kind, and over the course of her career, Dr. Sandel has written numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles on this subject. In 2001, she became the first medical director of the founding site for medical-legal partnerships, Medical-Legal Partnership-Boston, and from 2007-2016 she served as the Medical Director of the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership.

She served as Principal Investigator for numerous NIH, HUD and foundation grants, working with the Boston Public Health Commission and Massachusetts Department of Public Health to improve the health of vulnerable children, particularly with asthma. She has served on national boards, including Enterprise Community Partners, and national advisory committees at American Academy of Pediatrics and CDC Advisory Committee for Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention.

We can't wait to welcome Dr. Sandel on Saturday and hear about advocacy work in action!

05/08/2019

The Rethinking Advocacy in Medicine Conference is now 4 short days away! In preparation for the conference, we’ll be featuring some of our speakers and organizers throughout on this page. In this post we’re featuring our final panelist, Annika Morgan!

If you haven’t registered already, you can at tinyurl.com/RAIM2019, and if you have, share the event widely on your networks! Tag your friends that haven’t registered and come on May 11th @ Tufts University School of Medicine !
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Annika Morgan is co-founder and COO of Fresh Truck a Boston-based nonprofit working at the intersection of food and health care. Her work centers on designing food access programs to ensure low-income households have reliable access to fresh, affordable food. She and her team recently launched Fresh Connect, a food prescription program to address food as a social determinant of health. Fresh Connect enables healthcare institutions to underwrite the cost of food for patients at-risk or suffering from diet-related disease. She is a graduate of Northeastern University's D'Amore-McKim School of Business where she studied Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

We hope you will join us on Saturday to learn more about Fresh Truck 's amazing work!

05/07/2019

The Rethinking Advocacy in Medicine Conference is now 5 short days away! In preparation for the conference, we’ll be featuring some of our speakers and organizers throughout on this page. In this post, we’re featuring panelist, Chris Noble, MPH.

If you haven’t registered already, you can at tinyurl.com/RAIM2019, and if you have, share the event widely on your networks! Tag your friends that haven’t registered and come on May 11th @ Tufts University School of Medicine.
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Chris Noble, MPH is a global health researcher at Harvard Medical School in the Program in Non-Communicable Diseases and Social Change and an alumnus of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines North American Coordinating Committee. Chris has been an advocate for people with type one diabetes since his diagnosis in 1995 and is now on the leadership and direct action committee of the Boston Right Care Alliance. A bit about Right Care Alliance (RCA): "RCA is a grassroots coalition of clinicians, patients, and community members organizing to make health care institutions accountable to communities and put patients, not profits, at the heart of health care."

We hope to see you on Saturday to learn more about Chris Noble's work as an advocate for a more just health care system!

05/07/2019

The Rethinking Advocacy in Medicine Conference is now less thank a week away! In preparation for the conference, we’ll be featuring some of our speakers and organizers throughout on this page. In our third post, we’re featuring panelist, Dr. Elisa Choi.

If you haven’t registered already, you can at tinyurl.com/RAIM2019, and if you have, share the event widely on your networks! Tag your friends that haven’t registered and come on May 11th @ Tufts University School of Medicine

Also, check our website out for more information on speakers and the day of schedule: https://sites.tufts.edu/rethinkingadvocacyinmedicine/
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Dr. Elisa Choi, MD is the current Governor of the MA Chapter of the American College of Physicians (ACP), becoming the first female and only Asian-American woman to be elected to the Governorship in the history of the MA ACP Chapter. She has been elected to serve on the Executive Committee of the National Board of Governors of ACP. Dr. Choi is a representative of the ACP to the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates. She is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, and practices both as an Internist and as an Infectious Disease, HIV, and Hepatitis infection specialist.

Dr. Choi has a particular interest in healthcare disparities, and in providing culturally competent care addressing health issues affecting Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) and minority populations. Dr. Choi is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and holds clinical and educational leadership positions in her healthcare organization. She serves as a Chief of the Internal Medicine Department at her practice. Dr. Choi is the Co-Chair Emeritus and current active member of the Health and Public Policy Committee of the MA ACP Chapter. She has extensive experience in healthcare and public health advocacy efforts at Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, and has also been actively involved in the planning and organization of an annual Advocacy Day at the MA State House for the MA ACP Chapter since 2016. Dr. Choi has received the MA ACP Chapter’s Leadership Award in 2014, and serves on numerous national ACP committees.

Dr. Choi has been a member of the MA Adult Immunization Assoc. (MAIC) for many years, and has advocated for heightened immunization awareness among adult medicine practitioners. She was recently invited as a Keynote Speaker for the MAIC's annual conference in April 2019. In addition to her professional efforts, Dr. Choi has been active in the Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) community for many years. She was appointed by the MA Treasurer's Office as a Commissioner for the Commonwealth of MA Asian American Commission, for which she served as the Chairperson, Vice Chairperson, and Health and Human Services Committee Chair, during her 6-year tenure. Dr. Choi has also held titles as a Board member, Board Secretary/Clerk, Board Chair, and current role as Board Chair Emeritus of MAP (MA Asian & Pacific Islanders) for Health, a community-based nonprofit organization that works to improve healthcare access, disease prevention, and service delivery for the AAPI community in MA. She also serves on the Board of numerous other non-profit organizations (ATASK – Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence; NAAAP Boston – National Association of Asian American Professionals, Boston Chapter) which support the AAPI communities.

05/03/2019

The Rethinking Advocacy in Medicine Conference is now 8 short days away! In preparation for the conference, we’ll be featuring some of our speakers and organizers throughout on this page. In our second post, we’re featuring panelist Dr. Brian Swann, DDS.

If you haven’t registered already, you can at tinyurl.com/RAIM2019, and if you have, share the event widely on your networks! Tag your friends that haven’t registered and come on May 11th @ Tufts University School of Medicine.
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Dr. Brian Swann graduated from the University of California San Francisco, School of Dentistry. After 30 years in California, immersed in a career that included both public health and private practice, he realized he would make a greater impact by focusing on community dentistry and public health policy. This decision led him to Boston as the first Joseph L. Henry Fellow in Minority Health Policy. Since then, Dr. Swann has earned many prestigious accolades for his ongoing commitment to global outreach. Dr. Swann is involved with outreach projects in Boston (homeless health care), Jamaica, Haiti, Lebanon, Rwanda, and Spain. He is also directing a pipeline project for the Wampanoag Tribe on Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod.

Currently, Dr. Swann is the Chief of Oral Health for the Cambridge Health Alliance, an innovative health system and a vital safety net for the community’s underserved populations. He also practices clinical dentistry and conducts the Oral Physician Program within the General Practice Residency, a concept that expands primary care into the scope of oral health. Dr. Swann has been instrumental with the implementation of a shared appointment model. Fashioned after a similar medical model, this innovative approach to providing dental care was instituted to increase access to oral health services. These shared appointments are currently being utilized for dentures, infant/toddlers, diabetes, and pre-natal care. Dr. Swann has been instrumental in introducing oral health into the Harvard Medical School’s core curriculum and is a pioneer in integrating oral health into the primary care setting.

05/02/2019

The Rethinking Advocacy in Medicine Conference is just 9 short days away! In preparation for the conference, we’ll be featuring some of our speakers and organizers on this page. Today, we’re featuring our keynote speaker, Dr. Thea James. If you haven’t registered already, you can at tinyurl.com/RAIM2019, and if you have, share the event widely on your networks!
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Thea James, MD, is Vice President of Mission and Associate Chief Medical Officer at Boston Medical Center. Dr. James’ passion is in Public Health both domestically and globally. She is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of the Violence Intervention Advocacy Program at BMC and, in 2011, was appointed to Attorney General Eric Holder’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence.

For many years she and colleagues partnered with local international partners in Haiti, and Africa, to conduct sustainable projects. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Equal Health, and organization that works with local partners in Haiti to create strong, sustainable medical and nursing education systems. Dr. James is a founding member of the National Network of Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Advocacy Programs (NNHVIP).
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To learn more about and from Dr. James, we’ll see you on May 11th at Tufts University School of Medicine!