WASHINGTON – Five GW medical students received a Good Hope Award at the 4th Annual Bread for the City Good Hope Awards breakfast on October 1, 2009. Rani Nandiwada, Deb Bear, Jay Chelluri, Irina Fox, and Patrick Lowerre, along with Lisa Alexander, Ed.D., M.P.H., P.A., assistant dean for Community-Based Partnerships in GW’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences, were honored for their work in founding and running the H.E.A.L.ing (Health Education and Learning) Clinic at Bread for the City.
“Although the original founders of the clinic are graduating this year, they have made certain that the clinic they began can continue long after they have moved on,” said Dr. Randi Abramson, director of Bread for the City. “It is with tremendous gratitude that we awarded Rani Nandiwada, Deb Bear, Jay Chelluri, Irina Fox, Patrick Lowerre, and Lisa Alexander a Good Hope Award for their Beyond Bread Community Reformation.”
The five students receiving the award were first-year medical students who came to GW with a vision to practice medicine as part of their community. With the help of Lisa Alexander, they started the student-run medical clinic in October of 2007. Since the H.E.A.L.ing clinic launched two years ago, a steady flow of enthusiastic GW medical, PA and public health students have volunteered each week seeing patients, working in the lab and providing health education. The Clinic has over 150 students and 16 volunteer physicians and PAs involved today.
“It is a joy to see the students teach each other, to see the fourth-year students take on leadership roles, and to see the newer students jump right in and share ownership of the clinic,” said Dr. Alexander. “Given that our community is in a major healthcare crisis in large part because there aren't enough clinicians practicing community healthcare, we are proud to say that Bread for the City is a training ground for the next generation of providers.”
