Celebrating Service: A Public Health Conversation with Yale-Jefferson Award Winners and Students

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What are the pathways for current students in the social justice and public health sectors? Join the Yale Alumni Association and Dwight Hall at Yale in celebrating service and public health as former Yale-Jefferson Award winner Margaret Flinter ’80 MSN, senior vice president and clinical director of the Community Health Center, Inc. (CHCI) and senior faculty and founder emeritus of its Weitzman Institute, talks with current Yale students on their public health pathways. Building on her steadfast dedication to providing healthcare services for those in need, Margaret will lead a discussion with Dwight Hall Fellows that addresses the role of public service and public health to create social change and improve people’s lives. Participants will share their experiences, discussing the pathways for current students to pursue careers in these sectors, addressing how to identify mentorship opportunities and how to get involved to make a real difference. The Yale-Jefferson Awards are presented annually, recognizing sustained public service that is individual, innovative, impactful, and inspiring. The recipients are three Yalies – a Yale College student, a graduate or professional school student, and a member of the alumni body – all of whom have demonstrated service that draws on the Yale community and benefits the world beyond Yale. Since 1968, the Dwight Hall Summer Fellows has offered the unique opportunity for students to dedicate themselves to creating social change. Designed for community-engaged students who need the time and resources to enact a socially good idea, students are employed full-time, usually eight weeks.

Panelist Bios:

Margaret Flinter ’80 MSN Margaret Flinter received the 2021 Yale-Jefferson Award for Public Service for her steadfast dedication to providing healthcare services for those in need. She is senior vice president and clinical director of the Community Health Center, Inc. (CHCI), and senior faculty and founder emeritus of its Weitzman Institute. After graduating from the Yale School of Nursing, Flinter served as a National Health Service Corps scholar and new family nurse practitioner, joining the small staff of activists and clinicians of CHCI in Middletown, Connecticut. Under the living banner of “Health Care Is a Right, Not a Privilege,” they set out to build a model of comprehensive, innovative, and fully integrated primary care that today is recognized as one of the largest and most innovative health centers in the U.S. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, CHCI embraced its role as an activist healthcare organization, standing up the largest COVID testing and vaccine operation in the state, from a mass vaccine drive to clinics at migrant farms, churches, schools, and homes. In 2005, Flinter founded the Weitzman Institute as the research, innovation, and training arm of CHCI, noting that CHCI had the patients, data, and research questions to study persistent issues of access, health equity, and health disparities and test strategies to address them. Equally concerned with training future generations of healthcare providers, she launched the country’s first formal postgraduate residency and fellowship training program for new nurse practitioners in 2007, now a national model. Charlie Tran YC ’22, MPH ’23

Charlie Tran (he/him) is a current senior in Yale College from Honolulu, Hawai’i in the 5-year BA-BS/MPH program. He is majoring in the History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health and completing his MPH in Social and Behavioral Sciences with a concentration in U.S Health and Justice. As an aspiring primary care physician, he is passionate about health equity and addressing social and structural determinants of health (SDOH) in his current and future work. With support from Dwight Hall, he has worked with Fair Haven Community Health Care (FHCHC), a community health center in New Haven, since May 2021. His work with FHCHC involves patient outreach, clinic program evaluation, SDOH data analysis, and shadowing providers. Besides FHCHC, Charlie has previously volunteered with food aid organizations in New Haven, informing his interests in food insecurity and its impacts on community health.

Keith Calloway YC ’23 Keith is a junior in Branford College studying Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. He was been a Dwight Hall Community Mental Health Fellow since August 2020 and, in the past, has worked with Outpatient Rehab and a research project examining the influence of education on the aspirations of clients served by the Connecticut Mental Health Center. He currently works with CMHC’s History Exploration Committee, researching the center’s delivery of patient care and relationship with the New Haven community during its early years. Keith plans to attend medical school after completing his studies at Yale.

Audrey Huang YC ’21, MPH ’22 Audrey Huang is now in her 2nd year of her MPH in the Social and Behavioral Sciences department at Yale School of Public Health. Her research interests include: mental health, oppression-based and historical trauma, and structural violence. She is also a part of the BS-MPH program, and previously was a Community Mental Health Fellow through Dwight Hall during her time as an undergrad. Through her two years as a fellow, she was involved in a series of projects at the Connecticut Mental Health Center, including helping with building out a Spiritual Care site and the Together New Haven project. After graduating in May, she will return home to Northern Virginia and start work at a local healthcare organization.

COVID requirements: Yale students and Yale affiliates only; masking indoors and an attestation regarding vaccinations (including boosters).