The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) has selected Sean Lucan, MD, MPH, MS as the 2016 James C. Puffer, MD/American Board of Family Medicine Fellow. Dr Lucan is a practicing family physician in Bronx, New York, treating children and adults. He is also an award-winning National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded investigator who has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and thought pieces on food-related issues. Dr Lucan has co-authored a textbook on nutrition and another on biostatistics, epidemiology, preventive medicine, and public health. He is 1 of 3 outstanding health professionals selected for the class of 2016 NAM Anniversary Fellows.
Dr Lucan earned his MD and MPH degrees at Yale before completing residency training in Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Pennsylvania. After residency, he completed a fellowship in the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program, where he earned an MS in Health Policy Research. Dr Lucan is also a former Pisacano Scholar.
Dr Lucan’s research focuses on how different aspects of urban food environments may influence what people eat, and what the implications are for obesity and chronic diseases, particularly in low-income and minority communities. Another focus of his work is the critical examination of clinical guidance and public health initiatives related to nutrition.
As a Puffer/ABFM/NAM Anniversary Fellow, Dr Lucan will receive a research stipend of $25,000. Named in honor of James C. Puffer, MD, president and chief executive officer of the ABFM, the fellowship program enables talented, early career health policy and science scholars in family medicine to participate in the work of the Academies and further their careers as future leaders in the field.
NAM Anniversary Fellows continue their main responsibilities while engaging part-time over a 2-year period in the Academies’ health and science policy work. A committee appointed by the president of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) selects fellows based on their professional accomplishments, potential for leadership in health policy in the field of family medicine, reputation as scholars, and the relevance of their expertise to the work of NAM and the IOM.
Pisacano Leadership Foundation Names 2016 Pisacano Scholars
The Pisacano Leadership Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM), recently selected its 2016 Pisacano Scholars. These 5 medical students follow in the footsteps of 103 scholar alumni who are practicing physicians and 20 current scholars who are enrolled in medical schools or family medicine residency programs across the country. The Pisacano Leadership Foundation was created in 1990 by the ABFM in tribute to its founder and first executive director, Nicholas J. Pisacano, MD (1924–1990). Each Pisacano Scholar has demonstrated the highest level of leadership, academic achievement, communication skills, community service, and character and integrity.
Crister Brady is currently completing his Master of Public Health at the University of California-Berkeley. Next year he will begin his 4th year of medical school at the University of California-Davis School of Medicine (UC Davis). Crister graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) as a Morehead-Cain Scholar with degrees in Latin American Studies and Portuguese.
At UC Davis School of Medicine, Crister has received significant clinical training in rural communities as a scholar in the Rural Program in Medical Education (PRIME). His research during medical school has focused on exploring networks of care in local communities of people experiencing homelessness. Through this work, based primarily in qualitative research and oral history, Crister has brought together fellow students, university leadership, and community members and agencies to start a discussion around street medicine in Sacramento. He has presented his oral history work at the Society for Teachers in Family Medicine’s Medical Student Education conference and the International Street Medicine Symposium. Crister has been named to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and the Gold Humanism Honors Society. He serves on the UC Davis Family Medicine Department’s Community Engagement Council and has been an officer with the Family Medicine Interest Group since his first year of medical school.
Crister plans to continue his training in full-spectrum family medicine while exploring ways to both listen to and enact health solutions in collaboration with people from all backgrounds. He envisions a career involving home visits with families and neighborhood-based health teams, where health care is better embedded in the everyday context of our communities.
Elise Duwe is a 4th-year medical student at the University of Illinois College of Medicine (UI) at Urbana-Champaign. Earlier this year Elise completed a PhD in Sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Elise graduated from the College of Wooster with a Bachelor of Science degree in both Religious Studies and Biochemistry/Molecular Biology.
Elise was a founding member of UI’s Global Health Initiative (GHI), a student organization with the mission of catalyzing cross-campus, interdisciplinary partnerships focused on global health. She participated in GHI’s initial trip to Ghana and a subsequent trip to explore collaboration with Njala University in Sierra Leone. She received the Patricia J. and Charles C. O’Morchoe Fellowship in Leadership Skills both as an individual and team member, funding travel to Hawaii to study Native Hawaiian healing practices and to Ghana as part of GHI. Elise has served as the co-director of the Hermes Clinic, a student-run free clinic serving spouses, children and parents of students and visiting scholars from China, Brazil, and India. She established a series of health workshops called What Makes You Tick for men at Danville Correctional Center through the Education Justice Project (EJP). Also with EJP, Elise works on the committee that publishes a guide for reentry into society after incarceration in the state of Illinois. Elise was honored by one of her patients who nominated her for the Alan E. Crandall Award for Compassionate Care in Medicine, presented to a medical student or resident who demonstrates extraordinary potential to provide compassionate health care.
Elise’s studies, in addition to her immersion as part of a Family Medicine family since birth, have led her to envision a radical person-centered approach to caring for those at the margins and most affected by grief, pain, and suffering.
Brandon Hidaka is a 4th-year medical student at the University of Kansas School of Medicine (KU), where he also received his PhD in Medical Nutrition Science last year. He graduated from the University of Kansas (Lawrence) with a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry and Psychology.
Brandon’s passion for promoting healthy living continued from undergraduate into medical school, where he volunteered at school health fairs, a health-oriented afterschool program in a nearby low-income neighborhood, and as a group leader for children participating in an 8-week, family-based obesity intervention program. As a second-year medical student, Brandon helped direct Jaydoc Diabetes Night, a bimonthly free clinic that was run by medical students for indigent patients. That year, he also worked toward better diversity and inclusion as president of the LGBT & Allies campus group. Later, as a graduate student, he led another campus group, Food is Medicine. In that role, Brandon launched a community-supported agriculture program at the medical center with a fellow graduate student. The pair connected 170 students, faculty, and staff (and their families) to local farmers with a weekly delivery of fresh, seasonal groceries. Brandon’s dissertation focused on how diet influences breast cancer risk in order to empower women with accurate information. During his extended tenure as a student at the medical center, Brandon served many roles in the campus student governing body, including chairperson.
Brandon is thrilled for a front-row seat on humanity in family medicine. He is passionate about prevention and public health. He envisions a career in an academic health system, stewarding the health of families, applying statistics to real problems, teaching the next generation of health professionals, and making healthful decisions more convenient and accessible. As a healing ambassador of science, Brandon looks forward to working toward an inclusive culture of health.
Brianne Huffstetler Rowan is a 4th-year medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine (UW). Brianne graduated from Juniata College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Global Health and French. She also recently completed her Master of Public Health (MPH) at UW’s School of Public Health as part of an NIH-sponsored Pre-Doctoral Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Fellowship.
At UW, Brianne was named to both the Alpha Omega Alpha and Gold Humanism Honor Societies during her junior year and currently serves as secretary and Secretary General (president) for these UW chapters, respectively. She has been awarded the University of Washington’s School of Medicine Distinction in Service Award yearly for 4 years. Brianne has served with several free clinics in Seattle, Habitat for Humanity and Girls on the Run. She volunteers with the ROOTS young adult homeless shelter and has served for 2 years as the volunteer coordinator for UW student teams serving weekly breakfasts at the shelter. Brianne has also been an integral part of UW’s Family Medicine Interest Group, and has served for 3 years as the co-chair of Tar Wars, an American Academy of Family Physicians tobacco and smoking prevention program for 4th and 5th grade students. The program now reaches over 300 students yearly and was ranked 2nd place nationally in 2014 and 3rd place nationally in 2016.
As part of her MPH program, Brianne spent time in Vietnam promoting appropriate infant and young child feeding practices in rural areas. She spent six summers in a rural village in Northern Thailand volunteering to help bring youth together for cross-cultural community building and English language instruction. Her MPH thesis research focused on workforce needs in antenatal care clinics in Côte d’Ivoire.
Brianne is excited for the next stage of her journey in family medicine and for the opportunities to build compassionate, longitudinal relationships with patients and families. She hopes to dedicate her life to creating, improving, and providing comprehensive primary care programs with strong maternal-child health services in rural areas throughout the world.
Darrin Nichols is a 4th-year medical student at West Virginia University School of Medicine. Darrin graduated summa cum laude from West Virginia University (WVU) with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology.
Since beginning medical school, Darrin has continued to win awards and accolades. In 2014, 2015, and 2016 he was the recipient of the West Virginia University Institute for Community and Rural Health Scholarship, which recognizes students who are dedicated to becoming primary care providers in rural or underserved areas of West Virginia. Earlier this year he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society and the Gold Humanism Honor Society. Darrin has been involved in a number of research projects, including ongoing current research focusing on diabetes education in underserved populations. He has designed an educational workbook that participants will follow throughout the course of a program developed with other WVU medical students and volunteers. He has served as President of Stepping Stones and Student Coordinator of MUSHROOM, programs at WVU that involve medical students and local physicians conducting street rounds to provide basic necessities and medical care to the unsheltered populations of Martinsburg, WV and Morgantown, WV, respectively. Darrin is also the medical student coordinator of the Prevention of the Abuse of Substances in Students (PASS) Program for his local high school— a program he designed and obtained grant funding for with the collaboration of a local rural physician. Darrin was recently awarded the 2016 WVU School of Medicine, Eastern Division Community Health Outreach Award. He has also been named a Rural Scholar in the Department of Family Medicine at WVU School of Medicine, Charleston Division, a designation given to students dedicated to becoming family physicians and provides acceptance into the Charleston Area Medical Center Family Medicine residency program.
After residency, Darrin hopes to return to his hometown in West Virginia to practice as a family physician and to continue to provide education to students interested in family medicine, just as his mentors have done for him.
- © 2017 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.
In this issue
Jump to section
Related Articles
Cited By...
- No citing articles found.