reach press packet

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A MAGAZINE FOR THE UMDNJ COMMUNITY On Tour at Stratford School of Osteopathic Medicine — Tops in Geriatric Medicine School of Osteopathic Medicine — Tops in Geriatric Medicine STUDENTS AND THE POWER OF COMMUNITY LOOKING TO SOUTH JERSEY’S FUTURE C amden C OUNTS C amden C OUNTS FALL/WINTER 2009 . 10 On Tour at Stratford THE UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE & DENTISTRY OF NEW JERSEY UMDNJ MAGAZINE

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A MAGAZINE FOR THE UMDNJ COMMUNITY

On Tourat StratfordSchool of Osteopathic Medicine —Tops in GeriatricMedicine

School of Osteopathic Medicine —Tops in GeriatricMedicine STUDENTS AND THE

POWER OFCOMMUNITY

LOOKING TO

SOUTH JERSEY’SFUTURE

Camden COUNTSCamdenCOUNTS

FALL/WINTER 2009.10

On Tourat Stratford

THE UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE & DENTISTRY OF NEW JERSEY

UMDNJMAGAZINE

f a l l / w i n t e r 2 0 0 9 . 1 0 3

iddle school is prime time in Camden,”notes Farhad Modarai (left), one of theSOM students who have gathered totalk informally about their vision forCamden’s future and the part theyhope to play in shaping it. “Prime timeto become runners for the drug deal-ers,” he adds. His classmate Hyun Ouk

Hong shares another disturbing statistic: 10- to 12-year-oldsin Camden can look ahead to a threefold increase in juvenilearrests by the time they turn 13. So the two decided thatsomething needed to be done, and that they would do it.Their target would be the youth of Camden.

Modarai knows Camden; he did his undergraduatework at Rutgers-Camden with a major in urban studies andbiology and he was a mentor at a Camden school. Hong waspresident of the student council at Stevens Institute andhas a long-standing interest in community outreach. Theyput their heads — and their passions — together, andProject REACH (Revitalizing Education and AdvancingCamden’s Health) was created.

With a little research, the duo discovered that whilecommunity service was technically a requirement forCamden middle school students, the schools were oftenat a loss as to how to go about it. They designed ProjectREACH to fill this gap. “We will go to the students andsay, ‘you take control,’” Modarai explains. They plan tohave the Camden students become project leaders andthe UMDNJ students the “team members.” The goal isto “create grass roots leaders,” Hong says, “to teach themhow to organize their own projects.” Both are firm

believers in “the power of community.”Both young men have a highly developed social con-

sciousness. Modarai attends city hall meetings to be surethat the city “treats the locals fairly” amid the rush to buildluxury townhouses. The two recall a visit to a Camdenfarmers’ market to do blood pressure screening only to finda greater need to treat the infected arms of IV drug users.Their enthusiasm has built a REACH club, now with 55members, open to all UMDNJ students in South Jersey.

The first REACH projects will be built around fourareas: hypertension, teen pregnancy and HIV awareness,smoking and alcohol, and nutrition. The student groupworks under the guidance of SOM’s Department of FamilyMedicine. The department chair, Carman Ciervo, DO, willserve as the project’s administrative officer and medicalreviewer for the learning modules.

Modarai and Hong are modest — yet proud — abouttheir own role in this ambitious undertaking. Both receivedAlbert Schweitzer Fellowships, a program that supportsemerging professionals in translating their idealism intoaction. The project also earned a 2009 Caring forCommunity grant from the Association of AmericanMedical Colleges. They laughingly recount how they puttogether a budget itemizing everything from paperclips topost-it notes. They’re sure that it was obvious the grantapplications were student-initiated and this turned out tobe their strength. “I waited two years before I started med-ical school,” Modarai says. “But I came because I believethat physicians have powerful voices that should be raisedto combat social injustice and advocate for the under-served.” He hopes to increase the volume. .

MThe power of community

“W O R D S B Y B A R B A R A H U R L E Y / P H O T O G R A P H B Y J O H N E M E R S O N

S P O T L I G H T O N S O U T H J E R S E Y

A monthly update from Thomas A. Cavalieri, DO, FACOI, FACP, AGSF, Dean December 2009

Dear Students, Faculty and Staff,This newsletter generally highlights our School’s academic and clinical accomplishments; however, as the year draws to a close, we like to take note

of the many ways in which we serve our communities, as well as some of the ways in which the UMDNJ-SOM family celebrates this special time ofyear. The holiday season is a time to pause and reflect upon the past year, and, as I do, my overwhelming feeling is the pride I take in knowing thatUMDNJ-SOM students, faculty and staff have made such a difference for so many.

UMDNJ-SOM STUDENTS AND STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS SERVE THE COMMUNITY

Project H.O.P.E., Inc. is a non-profit organization whose mission is to improvethe health and well-being of Camden's homeless, and assist men and women intheir transition from homelessness to self-sufficiency. The Bergen LanningHealth Center provides health care, social services and mental healthcounseling to vulnerable adults that do not have other health care options.

This past summer, Jennifer Mojica ‘12, worked at Bergen Lanning HealthCenter, where she was involved in multiple projects such as performingcommunity outreach, creating educational literature and brochures, writingrequests for donations, providing transportation to the local food pantry andbeautifying the clinic grounds. Her main project in the health center was tocreate a patient orientation handbook, which presently serves as a guide fornew Project H.O.P.E. patients on their first visit to the clinic. In the community,her main role was to perform outreach to raise awareness of Project H.O.P.E.,Inc. and to actively seek out individuals who may need health care services orshelter. This was accomplished through use of the mobile health van, organizingand participating in community functions, and identifying those in need on thestreets of Camden.

Project REACH, established by Farhad Modarai ‘12 and Hyun Ouk Hong ‘12, is an integrated, multi-disciplinary initiative for Camden youth thatfocuses on health education and community activism.

In October 2009, the REACH project officially started, inconjunction with East Camden Middle School (ECMS). Thefirst learning session included 12 ECMS students, led by sixUMDNJ-SOM medical students. The primary objectives are tofacilitate interactive problem-based learning (PBL) modules toteach preventive health to the middle school students. Withunique Project Management workshops designed at an age-appropriate level, REACH not only educates the studentsregarding health issues, but also trains them to initiate,organize, troubleshoot and execute projects as well. Mostimportantly, the modules empower students to take control oftheir personal health, as well as the health of the community.

Project REACH was one of only seven programs nationallythat was honored with a 2009 Caring for Community grantfrom the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).Farhad and Hyun also both received Albert SchweitzerFellowships in recognition of their endeavors.

Project Revitalizing Education & Advancing Camden’s Health (Project REACH)

Project H.O.P.E., Bergen Lanning Health Center

(l-r) Komal Ahuja ‘13, William Lubinsky ‘13, Jason Kahn ‘13, NatalieHyppolite ‘13, Luigi Cendana ‘13, Johnathon LaBaron ‘13, Malasa Jois ‘13,Farhad Modarai ‘12 and Hyun Hong ‘12.

(l-r) Christian Spencer (UMDNJ student - physicianassistant program), Vona Johnson (Project H.O.P.E. outreachworker), and Jennifer Mojica ‘12 marketing the services ofProject H.O.P.E. at a local farmers’ market in Camden.

SEPTEMBER 2009! A L B E R T S C H W E I T Z E R F E L L O W S H I P! GREATER PHILADELPHIA

Camden AHEC Farmer’s Market largely

caters to underserved populations. In addition

to checking blood pressures and blood

glucose levels, the Schweitzer Fellows led the

following prevention workshops for over 100

Camden residents:

Usha Kumar and Alex Potashinsky provided

one-on-one counseling on various aspects of

prevention pertaining to wound care. These

involved discussions on limiting drug use,

developing better hygiene (along with

dispersing basic hygiene supplies such as

soap and nail clippers), and discussing

methods for exercising within the

participants’ means.

Hyun Ouk Hong led a Fall Prevention Table

for the elderly. Hong stated that, according to

the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC), falls were the leading

cause of injury death among older adults. He

distributed educational pamphlets provided by

the New Jersey Institute for Successful Aging

and held workshops for participants on tips to

prevent falls.

Farhad Modarai stated that one major

problem in Camden was access to healthy

foods. Therefore, he set up a table with

educational materials on nutrition and

distributed fruits and vegetables. More

importantly, Modarai held workshops for

residents on how they can eat healthy foods

on a workable budget.

Valencia Barnes and UMDNJ dentists

provided on site oral health/cancer screenings

for area residents. They screened children for

oral hygiene, tooth irregularities, and other

pediatric related dental issues. Adults were

also screened for oral cancers, oral hygiene,

and tooth decay.

Fellows serve Camden Residents at the Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Farmer’s Market

HYUN OUK HONG

UMDNJ

FARHAD MODARAI

UMDNJ

VALENCIA BARNES

UMDNJ

SERVICE DAY

Pictured Above (Left to right): Usha Kumar, Farhad Modarai, Dr. Shawn Kelly, Sirin Ocharoen, Hyun Ouk Hong, Valencia Barnes, Alex Potashinsky

USHA KUMAR

DREXEL

ALEX POTASHINSKY

DREXEL

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Press ReleaseDate: 06-05-09Name: Jerry CareyPhone: 856-566-6171Email: [email protected]

UMDNJ Student Group Receives National Award to HelpCamden Teens Stay Healthy

STRATFORD - A student group at the UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine,under the guidance of the school's Department of Family Medicine, has been namedone of just seven recipients of a 2009 Caring for Community grant from theAssociation of American Medical Colleges. The grant will support the REACH(Revitalizing Education and Advancing Camden’s Health) project that willimplement youth-initiated community health service projects in Camden and will usea problem-based learning approach to teach preventative health to select groups ofCamden middle school students. The grant provides $11,800 for the first year of theproject with the potential to receive an additional $17,000 over the next three years.

“REACH is an innovative approach to combat the complex, chronic health problemsfacing Camden residents,” said Dr. Carman Ciervo, chair of the Department of Family Medicine. “InCamden, one in four children is born to a teenage parent and one in four students fails to graduatehigh school. REACH volunteers from UMDNJ will help Camden middle school students to identifyhealth issues in their own community and to create service projects to address those problems.REACH volunteers will also work to recruit minority students into the health professions.”

The UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine is the only osteopathic medical school selected toreceive a Caring for Community grant this year. Project REACH will collaborate with a number ofother institutions, including the Camden Board of Education, Rutgers University and the CamdenArea Health Education Center (AHEC).

Second year medical students Hyun Ouk Hong and Farhad Modarai created the REACH program andserve as the administrators for the project’s first year. They will be joined by five other UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine students on the REACH executive board and more than a dozen othermedical school students who will volunteer as mentors for students from the Camden middle school.Dr. Ciervo will serve as the project’s administrative officer and medical reviewer for the problembased learning modules.

The UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine is dedicated to providing excellence in medicaleducation, research and health care for New Jersey and the nation. An emphasis on primary healthcare and community health services reflects the school’s osteopathic philosophy, with centers ofexcellence that demonstrate its commitment to developing clinically skillful, compassionate and

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culturally competent physicians from diverse backgrounds, who are prepared to become leaders intheir communities.

UMDNJ is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,700students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school ofbiomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school ofpublic health, on five campuses. Annually, there are more than two million patient visits to UMDNJfacilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/ Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camdenand Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, andUniversity Behavioral HealthCare, a statewide mental health and addiction services network.

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Students see doctor's view of health

Monday, February 15, 2010

By Carly Romalino

[email protected]

Camden middle school students have been playing doctor.

Part of Project REACH, a youth-initiated community health service project, East Camden Middle Schoolstudents get an up-close look at health problems in their communities and have the chance to enactchange.

Project REACH was founded by University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-School of OsteopathicMedical School students Farhad Modarai and Hyun Ouk Hong during their first year of medical school.

"We play doctor from day one in medical school and work through a patient case. We were really excitedabout this new type of learning because we were never exposed to it before," said Modarai, of GloucesterTownship. "It's great to expose kids to this type of learning."

Modarai brought the program into Camden City Public Schools in September, and recruited some 20students to participate in the after-school project. He, and other medical school student volunteers, workedwith the students in small groups to create a complete medical history work up for standardized patients hebrought to the school.

"They get to play doctor, they get to ask questions, and they must understand what the patient ispresenting," he said. "We base it on what an actual physician would ask a patient."

Then the medical student volunteers act as facilitators to spark conversation to understand the patient'ssymptoms and the cause for the health problem.

"We dive into the topic of smoking, and how it is bad for your health, and we test the students' knowledgearea," he said. "Whatever the students don't know, we would come up with learning objectives Ð how thelungs work, and what can go wrong."

Modarai said he designed the cases to coincide with the Camden Public School's science class curriculum,so the topics Project REACH covers will help the students with class material. According to Modarai,Camden scored poorly in math and science testing on the annual New Jersey Report Card.

"A lot of times the kids say teachers give up on them," he said. "If the teachers aren't enthusiastic about thematerial, it's hard for the kids to get enthusiastic. But we get excited about it, so it helps."

In addition to reinforcing what the students learned during science and health classes, Modarai said one ofthe objectives is to get the middle-schoolers in touch with common health problems that face theircommunity. Project REACH teaches the students about diabetes, hypertension, and other issues that theirfamily members might have to tackle.

"They'll say, ÔOh yeah, my mom has diabetes,' or ÔMy dad has hypertension,' or ÔYeah, my uncle smokes

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in the house.' And then they know how it affects his health and their health," he said. "We wanted to notonly do health education, but they thought it would be great if the kids could take their education and put itinto power."

The spring semester students have a chance to work on service projects that raise awareness of topicsranging from breast cancer and diabetes to sexual and domestic violence, he said. The students are split upinto teams and given a project budget of $400 per group that is furnished by several grants the ProjectREACH founders applied for and received.

"One group wanted to focus on abuse, and sexual and domestic violence. They want to set up a club attheir school where they can have kids come like a support network for the kids," he said. "We are teachingthem a lot of things about money management and project management."

Other groups are working on clothing drives, health fairs, community cleanup projects, and even multimediapresentations that will be recorded and posted on YouTube.com.

Currently, the 20 students are working to complete their projects, and in the process, they are recruitingmore of their friends to join the program and help.

Modarai said it's tough balancing his second year of medical school and running Project REACH, butworking with the kids is "definitely a great break."

"It's a relaxing point in my week," he said. "It kind of reinforces why you went into the profession in the firstplace."

For more information about Project REACH visit www.reach.umdnj.com.

©2010 Gloucester County Times

© 2010 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

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Posted on Sun, Apr. 4, 2010

Small steps to improve East CamdenBy Mike Newall

Inquirer Staff Writer

Tristan Gant likes bugs.

Beetles. Spiders. Butterflies. Anything he can find in the small dirt lot behind the Rite Aidnext to where he lives in East Camden.

He collects them in Tupperware and sets them on his grandmother's table near the window.There, he examines them with his magnifying glass, takes notes, and compares them withphotos from his bug books. Sometimes, he takes his own pictures before letting them go inthe lot.

"I want to be an animal scientist," he said.

Lately, when combing through the lot, Tristan has found it hard to find anything butcockroaches and flies among all the trash, needles, and purple plastic baggies left behind bydrug users.

Sometimes, he turns over a rock or digs into the ground and finds baggies still filled withdrugs.

"They bury them and come back in a few hours and dig them back up," he said.

When this happens, Tristan watches from behind a piece of wood that separates his yardfrom the lot and waits till the drug users and "hobos," as he calls them, leave. Then he goesback to looking for bugs.

"There used to be more good bugs," he said. "Now there are less better ones and morepests."

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The world opens up

This fall, Tristan, 12, was walking down a hallway at East Camden Middle School, where heis in the seventh grade, when he saw some friends sitting in Miss Sabb's science classroom.

"Come in," a friend told him.

It was one of the first meetings of an after-school program run by students at the Universityof Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Farhad Modarai, 25, a second-year med studentfrom Gloucester Township, invited Tristan to introduce himself.

"I like bugs," Tristan said to the other kids' laughter.

Modarai asked Tristan what scared him most about Camden.

"The drugs," he said.

During a series of sessions throughout the school year, the med students taught thestudents about drug abuse and smoking, teen pregnancy and STDs, obesity and asthma.They took the students to a 76ers game. It was Tristan's first time.

"The Sixers got 106," Tristan said. "The other team got 94."

As part of the program, Modarai and his classmate Hyun Hong, 26, asked the students todevelop neighborhood health-related projects. One student is designing a cancer-awarenessWeb site for kids. Others are organizing diabetes screenings.

Tristan had his own idea.

"He came in here and said he wanted to paint the wall and clean the lot," said Rob Blair, whomanages the Rite Aid that Tristan plays behind. Blair thought it was a good idea.

"We have a maintenance crew that comes out twice a month, and they have to use blowersto blow away all the drug baggies," he said. "It's a shame."

The neighborhood

Tristan is short for his age and shy, has pointy bangs, and fidgets with his glasses.

"I've been collecting bugs since I was 2," he said.

He lives in an apartment above an empty storefront church on Federal Street with his littlebrother, mother, father, and grandmother. A big oak in Tristan's backyard, sprouting leaves

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now, has an old wooden birdhouse and tire swing. Tristan likes playing in his yard with hiscocker spaniels, Gizmo and Cosmo, and his guinea pigs, Kirby and Kerry Ann, but the lotbehind the Rite Aid used to have grass and small plants that were great for finding bugs.

Once, he found a jumping spider. It had long legs and scary eyes. He took it inside.

"It was female," he said. "The big white ones are female. The small black ones are male."

He put some grass and leaves and lettuce in with the spider, but it wouldn't eat, so he put abumble bee in, too.

"I wanted to see what would happen," he said. "The spider got all still and then jumped onthe bee and killed it with its poison. It was scary."

The lot behind the Rite Aid is about 60 feet wide. There is a wall and some concrete whereTristan and his brother, Jordan, and his friends Christopher and Jamal play the ball game"suicide." They throw a rubber ball against the wall, and when someone drops it they have torun for the wall for safety.

In recent years, the bigger kids have spray-painted the wall with gang graffiti, Tristan said.

"Sometimes when you lean against it, the paint gets on your shirt," he said. "The ball getssticky, too, and there's all this negative stuff and curse words."

One time Tristan was catching fireflies when a man dragged a mattress onto the lot and wentto sleep.

Many of the streets around 27th and Federal are relatively clean and safe, said DaveGarrison a member of District Council Collaborative Board 3, which covers East Camden.But a new drug sect has been gaining ground in the neighborhood, he said.

"They are expanding their territory," he said.

Tristan measures the growth of the drug gang by the amount of trampled grass and garbagein the lot where he once found so many good bugs.

He knows that baby beetles live in the small corner of the lot not littered in trash, and thatbaby maggots live under the rocks near where the drug baggies cover the ground likeconfetti.

"Gross," he said, kicking at the baggies.

Making things better

Thursday was the final day before spring break, and Tristan was excited. At dismissal, heand a dozen classmates gathered in Miss Sabb's classroom with the UMDNJ students and

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painting supplies.

By the time the group made it to the lot, a dozen more neighborhoods kids had joined.

Modarai, taking away an afternoon away from his study sessions for the medical boards,handed out paintbrushes, rollers, and gloves, and the kids began to splash yellow paint overthe graffiti.

"We wanted to teach the kids," he said. "But we also wanted to empower them."

Older students, such as eighth grader Nigeria Crump, 13, painted the high portions of thewall, while Tristan and his two young cousins, Sean, 9, and David, 5, stood on their toes.

"Get some on the wall, too," Tristan told paint-covered David.

Tristan's mom, Shushana, brought out glasses of fruit punch. Modarai rolled a big magnetover the lot (in case of any needles), and the kids raked away the trash.

Wearing a fruit-punch mustache and paint-speckled glass, Tristan stood on a big rock. Helooked happy.

Then his mom called him inside to clean off some of the paint before he came back outsideto search for bugs.

More Information

To learn more about the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's ProjectREACH (Revitalizing Education and Advancing Camden's Health) and other communityhealth projects for children visit http://reach.umdnj.edu/

Contact staff writer Mike Newall at 856-779-3237 or [email protected].

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MEDIA ADVISORY CONTACT: Patrice Taddonio Communications Specialist The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship 617-667-5628 [email protected]

Two Schweitzer Fellows REACH for a Healthier Camden—And Get Results

New Health Intervention Program, “Project REACH,”

Empowers Camden’s At-Risk Middle Schoolers

Nearly half of Camden, New Jersey’s population lives below the poverty line. In 2006, one out of four children in

Camden City was born to a teenager. One in four Camden City high school students does not graduate.

But Schweitzer Fellows Hyun Ouk Hong and Farhad Modarai are doing something about it.

Galvanized by the social disparities right in their own backyard, these two medical students have launched Project

REACH (Revitalizing Education & Advancing Camden's Health). Taking an integrated, multi-disciplinary

approach, REACH is a unique health education intervention program aimed at equipping at-risk Camden middle

school students with the skills to take control of their own health—and empower their communities to do the

same.

“Camden middle schoolers’ test scores were below standards, their role models were local gang members, and

their overall outlook on their own health was alarming,” says Hong, a medical student at the University of

Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ). “We knew we had to provide creative tools to teach the

students preventive health education, provide positive mentorship, and ultimately empower them to be leaders for

their community.”

And that’s exactly what Hong and Modarai have done. With the support of The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, a

national nonprofit organization that works to address health disparities by developing “leaders in service,” the duo

collaborated with Camden community members and launched Project REACH—crafting an interactive problem-

based learning (PBL) curriculum on preventive health, complete with unique workshops that support youth-

initiated community health service projects, and delivering that curriculum each week to students at East Camden

Middle School (ECMS).

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That approach is already paying off. "Project REACH has made me believe I can do things I could not before,”

says 12-year old East Camden Middle School student Eduardo Lazo. “My favorite session was when I learned

about cancers that can be prevented. After the REACH smoking module, I went home and told my uncle about the

dangers of smoking. I scared him and he said he will quit smoking now for his daughter."

Having completed the educational component of REACH, Lazo and his peers are now learning project

management and brainstorming ideas for service projects. So far, their ideas tackle erasing graffiti, stopping

bullying in school, stopping gang violence, helping the homeless, teaching healthy eating, stopping smoking, and

cleaning the environment.

Hong and Modarai have garnered extraordinary support for Project REACH from the UMDNJ community—

several medical students and faculty members sit on the organization’s board, and are committed to sustaining and

expanding the program to other Camden middle schools once the duo’s Schweitzer Fellowship year is over.

"It is most exciting to see that Farhad Modarai and Hyun Hong have taken such a proactive approach to improve

the health of the youth in Camden,” says Dr. Carman A. Ciervo, D.O., FACOFP, Chairman of Family Medicine at

UMDNJ School of Medicine (SOM). “UMDNJ-SOM is deeply committed to expand the work of these two

student doctors to other efforts that are focused on preventative medicine. This project empowers youth to

REACH."

“Project REACH is carefully designed to not become a “one-and-done” kind of program,” Hong says, noting that

underserved Camden residents have expressed frustrations with research-based projects where an emphasis is

placed on gathering data instead of serving the community. “Sustainability has been a critical component

throughout the development phase of Project REACH. We hope to continue to establish collaborations, with the

hopes of strengthening this community for years down the road.”

Indeed, in addition to the support of the Schweitzer Fellowship and UMDNJ, Hong and Modarai earned a 2009

Caring for Community grant from the Association of American Medical Colleges to support the continued growth

and success of Project REACH (http://reach.umdnj.edu/).

About The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship (ASF)

Hong and Modarai are two of the nearly 250 graduate students each year who are selected as Schweitzer Fellows.

Over the course of a year, on top of their regular medical, nursing, or other health professional school

responsibilities, each Schweitzer Fellow must develop and implement a service project of at least 200 hours with

a direct and lasting impact on the health of underserved communities.

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By completing their Schweitzer service project during such a demanding time, Fellows emerge with a blueprint

for making service to those in need an enduring part of their “regular life.” Upon completion of their initial year,

they join an international alumni network of over 2,000 Schweitzer Fellows for Life—individuals committed to

working with the underserved throughout their careers as professionals.

“My experience as a Fellow has been priceless,” says Modarai.” Having a support network of passionate students

and working professionals that believe in your work is extremely motivating and inspiring. I feel like The Albert

Schweitzer Fellowship is on the forefront of health care professional education because of its hands-on and

interdisciplinary approach.”

The Greater Philadelphia Schweitzer Fellows Program, one of eleven U.S. Schweitzer sites, was established in

2006. Under the leadership of Dean David B. Nash, MD, MBA and colleagues at Jefferson School of Population

Health of Thomas Jefferson University, the Greater Philadelphia Schweitzer Fellows Program serves populations

in Delaware, Southeastern Pennsylvania, and Southern New Jersey.

For more information on ASF and its Greater Philadelphia Program, visit www.schweitzerfellowship.org and

http://schweitzerfellowship.wordpress.com.

To schedule an interview with Hyun Ouk Hong or Farhad Modarai about Project REACH,

please contact Patrice Taddonio at 617.667.5628 or [email protected].