WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Three Wake Forest University students, two from the School of Medicine and one from the School of Divinity, have been chosen as 2007-08 N.C. Schweitzer fellows.
Shayla Nesbitt, Bryant Cameron Webb and John Lawrence are among 21 graduate students from health professional schools in North Carolina who will participate in the Schweitzer Fellows Program.
Nesbitt, a post-baccalaureate premedical student, will provide HIV/Sexually-Transmitted Disease education to the Spanish-speaking population of Forsyth County.
Webb will provide mentoring, conduct health education, and promote interest in the sciences for teens in Winston-Salem through the Center of Excellence for Research, Teaching and Learning.
Lawrence, the first School of Divinity student to be awarded the Schweitzer Fellowship, will initiate a companionship program for residents of the Bethesda Center homeless shelter. He will also conduct seminars on a variety of health education topics.
The N.C. Schweitzer Fellows Program develops “leaders in service,” who will serve as examples to their peers by addressing the health needs of underserved N.C. residents.
“Fellows of all ages remind their peers that good intentions are not enough – that idealism in action is both an extraordinary force for good and a profound source of personal satisfaction,” said Barbara Heffner, N.C. Schweitzer Fellows program director.
The Schweitzer Fellows Program began in North Carolina in 1994. Other programs are located in Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Delaware Valley, San Francisco, New Hampshire and Vermont. In all, 235 N.C. Schweitzer Fellows have completed the program.
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Media contact: Shannon Koontz, shkoontz@wfubmc.edu; Karen Richardson, krchrdson@wfubmc.edu, (336) 716-4587.
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university’s School of Medicine. The system comprises 1,238 acute care, psychiatric, rehabilitation and long-term care beds and is consistently ranked as one of “America’s Best Hospitals” by U.S. News & World Report