SUNY Downstate Physician and Medical Student Win AMA Leadership Awards
Mar 11, 2010
SUNY Downstate medical resident Kaedrea Jackson, MD, MPH, and second-year medical student Rosalyn Elise Plotzker, were among the 30 honorees to receive Leadership Awards at the American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation’s annual Excellence in Medicine Awards ceremony on March 1, in Washington, DC.
Leadership Awards are presented in recognition of outstanding nonclinical leadership skills in advocacy, community service, and education. Dr. Jackson is one of only six residents and fellows nationwide to receive this year’s leadership award, and Ms. Plotzker is one of only 20 medical students selected for this signal honor.
Dr. Jackson is a fourth-year resident specializing in emergency medicine/internal medicine at SUNY Downstate and Kings County Hospital Center. She entered the residency program after graduating from Downstate’s combined MD/MPH degree program and currently serves as speaker of the Council for the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association, the largest and oldest professional organization of its kind.
This year, in recognition of her contributions to graduate medical education and to the health and well being of the community SUNY Downstate serves, Dr. Jackson was honored by the Women’s History Month Committee as one of the Extraordinary Women of Downstate.
Upon completing her residency, Dr. Jackson plans to go on working in diverse and underserved
communities. “I believe that the best way to combat the health problems that affect
these populations is through a combination of medicine, health instruction, and disease
prevention,” she says.
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Rosalyn Plotzker, student winner of the Leadership Award, believes that health care is a basic human right. While still an undergraduate, she became active in HIV education and prevention programs in Philadelphia, and later co-founded a citywide HIV-testing day campaign. She became adept at using the media to promote health education. In addition to a public service announcement, she produced and directed a documentary about two local HIV activists. She also worked with organizations in New Orleans and New York to aid the homeless and, shortly before entering medical school, volunteered in a home-based care program in Kenya.
Now a second-year student in the College of Medicine at SUNY Downstate, Ms. Plotzker continues to hone her communications skills. “Stories Forum,” a student-run speaker series she helps organize, provides a humanistic supplement to medical education by inviting patients and their caretakers to describe their experiences. At the National American Medical Student Association convention early this March, Ms. Plotzker and another colleague were invited to present a poster on how the presentations help to change students’ attitudes toward illness and disease.
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About SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University
Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn is one of four academic health centers (AMCs) in The State University of New York (SUNY) 64-campus system and the only SUNY AMC in New York City dedicated to health education, research, and patient care for the borough’s 2.7 million residents. Its flagship hospital, University Hospital at Downstate (UHD), is a teaching hospital and benefits from the expertise of Downstate’s exceptional medical school and world-class academic center research facilities. With a staff of over 800 physicians representing 53 specialties and subspecialties, Downstate offers comprehensive healthcare services to the community.
UHD provides high-risk neonatal and infant services, pediatric nephrology, and dialysis for kidney diseases and is the only kidney transplantation program in Brooklyn. Beyond its clinical expertise, Downstate houses a range of esteemed educational institutions, including its College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Health Professions, School of Graduate Studies, and School of Public Health. Downstate fosters innovation through its multifaceted biotechnology initiative, the Biotechnology Incubator and BioBAT, which support early-stage and more mature biotech companies.