Seven ECU students awarded Schweitzer Fellowships
GREENVILLE, N.C. — Seven students at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University have been selected as 2007-2008 North Carolina Albert Schweitzer Fellows.
The students, who just finished their first year of medical school, will commit to a year of service with a community agency, devoting more than 800 hours to local communities lacking access to adequate health services.
Below are the students’ names and their service projects:
ECU 2007 Schweitzer Fellows are, seated from left, Bari Eberhardt, Mary Catherine Knight, Courtney Weems and Natalie Desouza. Standing, from left, are Holly Moye, Wylie Carhartt and Rita Sridaran. Photo by Cliff Hollis
–Wylie Carhartt and Holly Moye will provide nutrition education classes for Latino families at the Greene County Family Literacy Program.
–Natalie Desouza and Rita Sridaran will organize a social training summer program for autistic children and their siblings through Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication-Handicapped Children, or TEACH, and the Pitt County chapter of the Autism Society of North Carolina.
–Bari Eberhardt and Mary Catherine Knight will create a bone health education program focusing on nutrition, lifestyle and physical activity for middle school children in Pitt County schools.
–Courtney Weems will promote skin cancer awareness for community members and workers in the tourism industry in Avery County.
Eberhardt said the call to service the fellowship offers is what made her want to participate.
“Being able to reach out to a community and help out — the Schweitzer Fellowship really facilitates that,” she said. “That’s why you want to be a physician in the first place: to help people.”
Knight agreed, adding that the fellowship provides an opportunity to share their skills and knowledge with the community while also learning.
“This is a perfect way for me to give back,” she said.
Fourteen other graduate students from health professional schools in North Carolina also received fellowships. Schweitzer Fellows continue their education while participating in the entry year of the Schweitzer Fellows Program.
The first U.S.-based Schweitzer Fellows Program was founded in Boston in 1991, and the second was in North Carolina in 1994. Other programs are in Baltimore, Chicago, New Hampshire/Vermont, Pittsburgh, the Delaware Valley and San Francisco. Nearly 240 North Carolina Schweitzer Fellows have completed the program.
More information about the Schweitzer Fellowship program is available at www.schweitzerfellowship.org.