Helping neighbors near and far
Serving the community and teaching others how to do so undergirds the missions of teaching, learning, discovery, and care in Emory’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center.
Emory Healthcare:
Last December, staff at Emory University Hospital Midtown teamed with Atlanta’s HEALing Community Center, a federally qualified health center in southwest Atlanta, to donate toiletries and school supplies for the needy.
School of Medicine:
Last fall, Emory physicians in emergency medicine and nephrology met a plane transporting patients and family caregivers from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Dobbins Air Force Base for urgent medical evaluation following Hurricane Maria. Most had end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis, and there were significant concerns that they had received inadequate dialysis in the preceding days.
Emory Healthcare:
A recently launched telemedicine program provides acute renal consults for hospitals in rural Georgia that don’t have on-site nephrologists or in-house dialysis programs so patients can stay closer to home for dialysis. Also aimed at making care more convenient is a new partnership between Emory cardiologists and nephrologists to combine dialysis visits with routine screening for heart disease.
Winship Cancer Institute:
Winship is tripling the size of its Phase 1 Clinical Trials Unit, which will allow for more first-in-human trials of new therapies. They used a life-sized cardboard model to design the unit to provide the best possible environment for patients and staff.
School of Medicine:
Under supervision of faculty, medical students see patients in free medical clinics at the Clarkston Community Health Center and at Atlanta’s Gateway Center.
Yerkes National Primate Research Center:
Christina Huang was one of several local high school students who spent time this past summer in a lab at Yerkes to learn firsthand about neuroscience research. Postdoc Dan Albaugh (background) studies how brain circuits are disrupted in Parkinson’s disease.
School of Nursing:
Emory nursing students will learn to play a greater role in community-based primary care through a new partnership with Mercy Care of Atlanta, a federally qualified health center with several stand-alone and mobile health clinics in Atlanta providing services for the homeless.
Emory Global Health Institute:
The EGHI leads the Child Health and Mortality Prevention and Surveillance Network (CHAMPS), which is funded by the Gates Foundation to help countries with high child mortality strengthen their capability to collect, analyze, interpret, and share data to inform public policy. Established in 2015, CHAMPS now has sites in seven countries. Above: Bangladeshi women gather for a focus group to assess their perceptions of an arsenic-filtering water treatment plant implemented in their community.
Rollins School of Public Health:
Rollins professor Kelli Komro has studied two interventions to curb teen drinking in the Cherokee Nation in northeast Oklahoma, one encouraging adults to actively engage with community leaders and law enforcement to change attitudes and practices toward underage drinking and the other aimed at teens themselves.
School of Medicine:
Every six months, Emory ophthalmologist Soroosh Bahshad leads a group from Emory to treat eye problems in people living in a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan.
Emory Healthcare:
Various community health education events take place at Emory hospitals throughout the year, includng health screenings for women (top, Emory Johns Creek Hospital) and a year-long diabetes prevention program sponsored by Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital (bottom).
School of Nursing:
Fekadu Aga and Daniel Mengistu will soon become the first students to complete their PhD in nursing in a PhD program established by Emory’s nursing school with Addis Ababa University in 2015. Currently, 12 students are enrolled in the program.
Winship Cancer Institute:
Each year, the Winship Summer Scholars Program gives high school students the opportunity to work alongside cancer researchers in the lab to learn about a career in scientific research.