Shout-Outs
By Office of the President | May 1, 2023
Celebrating Earth Day 2023
Annual God’s Battalion of Prayer Health Fair
SUNY Downstate participated in Annual God’s Battalion of Prayer Health Fair last month. Their focus is “Healthy Lifestyle” this year. Rev. Alfred Cockfield II, Executive Pastor, God’s Battalion of Prayer Church warmly welcomed the SUNY Downstate team who have consistently provided providers since 2012 to support their annual community health initiatives. Betty Jung, RN from Center for Community Health Promotion and Wellness (CCHPW) and a team of medical students Kelita Waterton, Hannah Brown, and Allison Squillante from the Brooklyn Free Clinic provided health screenings and healthy lifestyle education. Sarah Marshall, DNP, MS, RNC (CCHPW) provided breastfeeding and kidney donation education. Thank you also to volunteers Vicente Marshall and Melissa Rojas who assisted with registration and set-up.
Donald Stankalis Performs with Rock Voices
Congratulations to Communications & Marketing Don Stankalis for always bringing joy to the community. Don lends his voice to this recent Rock Voices Brooklyn Heights Concert production of April 29, 2023, performing Shambala (Three Dog Night).
Harvard Global Health Institute’s Inaugural Global Symposium Welcomes Chief of Neurosurgery
Ernest J. Barthélemy, M.D., MPH, MA, Neurosurgery Division Chief, and assistant professor of Surgery, Neurology and Orthopedic Surgery, continues to elevate Downstate’s profile, most recently serving as a panelist at the Harvard Global Health Institute’s Inaugural Global Symposium, Decolonial Praxis and Health: Challenges and Priorities. The panel discussed the challenges confronting an anticolonial movement for health justice and identified decolonial and antiracism approaches with constructive potential. The event was hosted in partnership with the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Tots and Teens Spring Time Community Health Fair
Downstate’s Center for Health Promotion and Wellness participated in the Spring Time Community Health Fair held at the Brooklyn Public Library-Flatlands branch. The event, hosted by Tots and Teens In-Focus and Circle Dynamic Women of Power, was broadcast live on Talk AD Town Radio Station. Downstate provided information on orthopaedic services, breastfeeding, organ donation, and services available for the uninsured/under-insured at the Brooklyn Free Clinic. In addition, free health screenings and preventive health education were provided.
Many thanks to the staff and volunteers who represented Downstate: Sarah Marshall, DNP, MS, RNC, with Betty Jung, RN, and volunteers Melissa Rojas and Vicente Marshall, all from the Center for Community Health Promotion and Wellness; Yvette Haynes, RN and Sasha Persaud, RN, College of Nursing graduate students; Rebeca Osorio, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine; and Hannah Brown, Allison Squillante, and Ingrid Gandra, College of Medicine students from the Brooklyn Free Clinic.
CANY and Harvard Graduate Students Visit STAR Program
Jessica Yager, M.D., MPH, Medicine/Division of Infectious Diseases assistant professor, and Lamont Bryant, MPS, Medicine community linkage specialist, and Jack DeHovitz, M.D., MPH, Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Special Treatment and Research Program director, recently hosted representatives from the Correctional Association of New York (CANY) and a multidisciplinary group of graduate students from Harvard on a visit to Downstate’s STAR program.
CANY provides external oversight to New York State correctional facilities and prison conditions, and its advocacy has improved access to medical and mental health care in the state’s prisons.