MMS and Alliance Charitable Foundation 2009-2010 Grants

Community Action & Care for the Medically Underinsured

• Boston Coalition for Adult Immunization - $20,000 to support the administration of both flu and pneumonia vaccines to thousands of underserved at-risk adults in the Boston area while training 250 medical and nursing students.
• Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program - $10,000 to support shelter-based medical services, provided by registered nurses at the Pine Street Inn Clinic
• Community Health Center of Cape Cod - $15,000 to support the Specialty Network for the Uninsured, a patient referral program that connects the uninsured with the services of a physician specialist or surgeon and related diagnostic procedures
• Father Bill's & MainSpring - $10,000 to support a nurse practitioner, at MainSpring Clinic in Brockton, who will continue to assist more than 50 homeless patients per week by providing basic medical care and coordinating physician referrals for patients in need of primary care or urgent care.
• Katie Brown Educational Program - $5,000 to support the expansion of relationship violence prevention programming to a broader age range of students in the Fall River area.
• Metro West Free Medical Program - $15,000 to support volunteer physicians as they provide free health care services to the medically underserved in the community and the expansion of their efforts to address chronic disease prevention and management.
• Open Door Free Medical Program - $10,000 to support the expansion of comprehensive women's health services to the un/underinsured in the Marlborough/Hudson communities, provided by volunteer physicians.
• Peer Health Exchange - $20,000 to support the training of 400 volunteers from six college sites to deliver a comprehensive health curriculum to 3,300 ninth grade students in Boston public schools; with the goals of increasing high school students' ability to make healthy decisions, and to build a commitment to public service among the college student volunteers.
• Project Health - $20,000 to support efforts to implement a universal screening system at Boston Medical Center's pediatric clinic; including a needs assessment to project the level of volunteer capacity required to meet patients' needs, staff capacity to provide appropriate training and support of volunteers, as well as long-term costs of the program.
• Sharewood Project - $10,000 to support urgent and primary healthcare services to medically vulnerable residents of the Great Boston area at weekly clinics in Malden, provided by volunteer medical students under the supervision of volunteer physicians.
• Volunteers in Medicine Berkshires - $15,000 to support  a part-time Clinic Manager who will manage the scheduling of provider visits and medical interpreters as well as ensure that the volunteer medical clinic providing health care to the underinsured and uninsured residents of the southern Berkshire region is operating effectively.

Other

• The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship - $25,000 to support the Boston Schweitzer Fellows Program, one of ten such programs in the U.S. The Fellows Program supports students in medicine and other health professions who are engaged in community service projects that promote health and improve access to health care for underserved populations.
  2009-10 Final Report to Massachusetts Medical Society (.pdf, 5 pages)
• Lambaréné Schweitzer Fellowship - $5,000 to provide support to a senior year medical student at the University of Massachusetts Medical School to spend three months working as a Fellow at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon on clinical rotations.
  2009-2010 Lambarene Schweitzer Report (.pdf, 15 pages)

International Health Studies

• Jennifer Dan
  A fourth-year medical student at Boston University School of Medicine who will participate in both the inpatient wards and outpatients clinics at the Motebang District Hospital in Leribe, Lesotho. She will also participate in teaching sessions with the residents and take overnight call with a resident.
• Karsten Lunze, MD, MPH
  A second-year preventive medicine resident at Boston Medical Center who will provide clinical services to both mother and newborn at the Maternal and Child Health Clinic at the district hospital in Leribe, Lesotho. Dr. Lunze will also research the current newborn practices at the hospital and in the community as they relate to the recent increase in infant and child mortality rates.
• Andrea Mendelsohn, MD
  A second-year family medicine resident at Greater Lawrence Family Health Center who will rotate through the inpatient and outpatient services at the Baptist Medical Center in Ghana, West Africa. Dr. Mendelsohn will care for children and adults admitted to the hospital, deliver babies on the obstetrical ward, assist in caesarean sections and general surgery, as well as staff the outpatient clinics.
• Joanna Suski
  A fourth-year medical student at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who will participate in an international health seminar and a clinical practicum experience in Quito and Otavalo, Ecuador. She will interview and examine patients, as well as participate in a rural community health brigade and local cultural activities.