Voices from the Grassroots: Working for Health and Environmental Justice
February 11th, 2008 by mcgAMSA’s first Environmental Health Institute!
co-sponsored by Teleosis Institute
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Houston, TX
We’re looking for medical students to help transform medicine. We’ll build our skills, knowledge, and leadership to:
*respond to health consequences of climate change and fight global
warming*
*promote healthy urban planning and sustainable food* *make workplaces safe* *promote well-being of low-income communities and communities of color* *address toxic threats to child development* *prevent cancer* *use the knowledge and voice of the medical community to support social justice* *green our healthcare*
… and much more!
Our keynote speakers are Jill Stein, MD (confirmed), and Jerome Ringo
(invited)
Jill Stein is a physician and health advocate who is nationally known for her work to protect children from toxic exposures. Dr. Stein was a candidate for Governor of Massachusetts in 2002. Jerome Ringo has been called “the most interesting environmental leader in the United States right now,” by The Nation magazine, and he is among Ebony magazine’s most influential African-Americans of 2006. More information on our keynote speakers, workshop leaders, and action planning sessions can be found at the end of this message.
We’ll end the day with action plans: for a medical student environmental health leadership initiative, for AMSA, for our schools and hospitals, and for our profession.
Come to be inspired, learn about cutting edge issues, share your knowledge, and connect with other amazing student and physician leaders.
Register now for the Institute and AMSA’s National Convention at:
https://www.amsa.org/secure/conv/onlineregistration.cfm
The early bird deadline is February 12!
To see our developing agenda, go to:
http://www.amsa.org/conv/program.cfm?day=Wednesday
Have a question? Need help getting to Houston for the Environmental Health Institute? Please contact me!
Unable to attend, but interested in being involved in our next steps?
Let me know. Not a medical student? Pre-meds, physicians and people who share our mission are welcome.
Inspired by our work? Contact me for information on how to donate money to provide scholarships for students to attend the institute.
See you in Houston!
Best wishes,
Liza
—
Liza Goldman Huertas
Yale School of Medicine Class of 2008
Public Health Environment Coordinator, AMSA http://www.amsa.org/cph/environment.cfm
To give to the Environmental Health Institute, go to:
https://app.etapestry.com/hosted/AMSAFoundation/OnlineDonation.html
Check off “Leadership University” and write “Environmental Health Institute” in the Comments field.
Tentative Agenda
************************************************************************
*********
Voices from the Grassroots: Working for Health and Environmental Justice
************************************************************************
*********
9:00 am-9:15 am Welcome & Opening Remarks 9:20 am-10:10 am Keynote Address: Integrating Environment, Human Health, and Social Justice: Jill Stein, MD and Jerome Ringo
Workshop Session I:
Consumer and Worker Protection; Surviving Katrina: Strategies for Health and Community; Seeking Justice from Union Carbide in India; Urban Planning and Our Health
Workshop Session II:
Air Quality; Green Healthcare; International Environmental Health; Work, Stress, and Chronic Disease
Workshop Session III:
Careers in Occupational and Environmental Medicine; Climate Change & Public Health: What Medical Students Need to Know and What We Can Do About It; Sustainable Food for Health and Environmental Justice; Winning the War on Cancer
2:50 pm-4:00 pm  The Power of Community in Houston: Environmental
Justice Struggles and Successes
4:10 pm-5:20 pm  Planning for Action in Small Groups
5:30 pm-6:00 pm  Closing Remarks
Some of the confirmed speakers in our developing agenda:
David Egilman, MD, MPH; Students for Bhopal; Catherine Jones, MS4, Tulane School of Medicine; Richard Jackson, MD, MPH and Brendan Jackson, MD; Tee Guidotti, MD, MPH; Joel Kreisberg, DC, MA, and Teleosis Institute; Peter Orris, MD, MPH, Mark Cullen, MD; Sonia Lazreg, MS1, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and The Medical Alliance To Stop Global Warming; Erica Mintzer, MS3, Yale School of Medicine; Devra Davis, PhD, MPH
Keynote Bios:
Jill Stein, MD
Jill Stein is a physician and health advocate who is nationally known for her work to protect children from toxic exposures. Dr. Stein serves on the Board of Directors for Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility and MassVoters for Fair Elections, and was founder and recent past president of the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities. She received her MD degree from Harvard Medical School and is a board certified internist.
Dr. Stein is the recipient of Clean Water Action’s Children’s Health Hero Award, Not in Anyone’s Backyard Award, and the Toxic Action Center’s Citizen Award.
Dr. Stein became involved in the movement for Fair Elections and other democracy reforms which she understood as essential for improving health and the environment. Jill’s 2002 Green-Rainbow campaign for Governor in Massachusetts led Cosmo Macero of the Boston Herald to declare that “There’s hope for real people in politics after all.”
Jerome Ringo
Since being elected chair of the board of the National Wildlife Federation, Jerome Ringo has been cited as “the most interesting environmental leader in the United States right now,” by The Nation, and among Ebony magazine’s most influential African-Americans in 2006.
After a 20 plus-year career in the petrochemical industry, Mr. Ringo has a clear understanding of the impacts of poor environmental practices on the communities that surround those petrochemical plants. He believes more attention needs to be given to those communities so adversely affected.
Mr. Ringo and his wife Mary volunteered to assist evacuees from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005, and then as residents of Lake Charles, Louisiana, became evacuees themselves when Hurricane Rita swept through the Gulf several weeks later. Those experiences thrust Jerome forward as a national conservation spokesman on an array of issues including global warming’s influence in making hurricanes more intense, reforming national water policies and projects to put the public interest first, and restoring the degraded wetlands of coastal Louisiana and other habitats vital to wildlife. His leadership on these and other issues, led to him being named president of the Apollo Alliance in December 2005. The Apollo Alliance is a coalition including business, labor, faith and conservation groups, farmers and others united in the effort to forge a new energy future that will both create jobs and reduce America’s dependence on fossil fuels.
healthcare (r)evolution
You must be logged in to post a comment.