From fiu.edu

Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine’s innovative approach to medical education received national exposure Wednesday, Jan. 5, when National Public Radio (NPR) featured the medical school’s Green Family Foundation NeighborhoodHELP initiative on its Morning Edition radio show that is broadcast to a national audience.

To access the radio piece and accompanying story, click here.

The Green Family Foundation NeighborhoodHELP initiative is a core component of the College of Medicine curriculum. Through NeighborhoodHELP, the community outreach arm of the Green Family Medicine & Society Program, each medical student is part of a team that includes students from nursing, social work, public health, law and other disciplines. Over a three-year period, each medical student will work with a household. The interdisciplinary cooperation is similar to the model that is taking shape in modern medicine, as doctors collaborate with counterparts such as social workers to address a patient’s needs.

Last year, the Green Family Foundation (GFF), a private, non-profit organization that supports social programs dedicated to improving community health and elevating universal socio-economic conditions, announced a $5 million gift – $10 million with state match – to fund the Medicine & Society program.

From NPR

With community-based health care a central part of its curriculum, Florida International University's medical school turned an RV into a mobile health clinic so that students could treat families in neighborhoods where medical care is scarce.

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From the Miami New Times

Three years after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, it's easy to look to the island nation and wonder, what has been done, what has improved, is there rebirth?

It can be a dark gaze -- so much to be done. But for rays of light, look no further than Haiti's premiere dance troupe Ayikodans, founded in 1987 by internationally renowned choreographer Jeanguy Saintus, which found a helping hand in Miami through an effort led by the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.
"Ayikodans represents a real life story of physical and spiritual renewal," says John Richard, president and CEO of the Arsht Center. "When the earthquake shocked our friends in Haiti and we learned that Ayikodans was in peril, we asked ourselves, 'How can we help? How can we make a difference?'"

They could make a difference by raising funds to build a new studio for the troupe, back in the Caribbean nation, as both a beacon of hope and a necessity to keep the company afloat. It opened earlier this month.

Continued...

Above: Ayikodans’ new studio (Photos by Ben Depp)

Article By the Caribbean Journal staff: http://www.caribjournal.com

Three years after the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti destroyed its studio, Ayikodans, the country’s leading dance group, has a new home.

The new 40-by-20 studio in the suburb of Petion-Ville, will house rehearsals, classes for students and perhaps inspire new works

The Miami-based Adrienne Arsht Center, which has hosted the troupe’s shows in Miami for the past two years, helped support the build-out of the new space.

“Ayikodans represents a real life story of physical and spiritual renewal — when the earthquake shocked our friends in Haiti and we learned that Ayikodans was in peril, we asked ourselves, ‘How can we help? How can we make a difference?’ Miami came together as a community to offer a hand,” said John Richard, President and CEO of the Adrienne Arsht Center. “Our response is ensuring one of the country’s artistic treasures lives on. We have been given this extraordinary choreographer and dance company that radiates Haitian culture and has something very significant to say through the power of dance.”

Ayikodans, which was founded in 1987 by Haitian-born choreographer Jeanguy Saintus, blends influences from folk dances, African and indigenous Indian art forms, French traditions and voodoo.

“Without the Arsht Center and the compassion and generosity of the Miami community, we would not have been able to rebuild our studio,” said Jeanguy Saintus, founding choreographer of Ayikodans. “We have danced on stages around the world but we will always consider Miami and the Arsht Center our true home away from home.”

Ayikodans has found support from a number of individuals since the quake, including Tom Murphy, founder of Coastal Construction, WIN Group managing partner Youri Mevs and Miami Herald World Editor John Yearwood, among others.

The Green Family Foundation, led by its president, Kimberly Green, has awarded a two-year grant to the Arsht Center to present Ayikodans this season and ensure its return next season in Miami.

From the Huffington Post

When Green Family Foundation President Kimberly Green somewhat jokingly suggested getting San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro to keynote Americans for Immigrant Justice's annual dinner, even she thought the idea a tad far-fetched. Castro, of course, is the man who stepped up to the Democratic Convention's prime-time podium and proved he could stand and deliver with the best of 'em, including Obama himself, who'd been given the same chance to show he was worthy of anointing.

Better yet, like the president, His Honor exhibited the kind of rock star cool which becomes most evident when the heat is on. And upon convention's end there wasn't a household in the nation that didn't somehow get hot at the prospect of having the Stanford/Harvard-educated chico from San Antone be the Dems next best shot at the White House.

But Kimberly Green, Ph.d. didn't build GFF into the sorta place which saves lives, rescues archives, and guides the light by being near-sighted. And she sure didn't come to establish a program that's the "core component" of what's projected to make the state an annual $78 million and create an estimated eight to 11,000 new jobs in Miami-Dade without fielding some good old-fashioned far-fetched. So with the theme of this year's AIJ dinner in her head, and a little extra skip in her step, Green did indeed "dare to dream." The rest, as we'll see, proves the best and the biggest and the brightest of dreams all begin with a dare.

What makes Mayor Castro such a good fit to host the 2013 Annual AIJ Dinner?

Well, besides his delivering an inspiring and, dare I say, hip Democratic Convention keynote speech, and him being one of the party's most rapidly rising stars, Mayor Castro also presides over the country's seventh most populous city, in the second most populous state. Equally important is that his story's so rooted in immigrant advocacy, which, as the name states, has always been the primary objective of Americans for Immigrant Justice. Oh yeah, and His Honor just so happens to be a member of the fastest growing voting bloc of the American populace. Just ask Obama.

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It was a scene straight out of that old campy commercial from the 1980’s. Hoping to relieve her back pain, Ruth Triebwasser went to sleep on a recliner instead of her bed. Sometime during the night, she slid off the chair and could not get up.

In the original television ad for a medical alarm bracelet company, the actress playing the elderly woman who falls, uttered the now famous catchphrase, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” A friendly dispatcher immediately assured her help was on the way. But in real life things are more complicated. And on that day, of all days, she can’t remember why, but Triebwasser wasn’t wearing her medical alert bracelet. “I wear it always. That night I didn’t have it on.”
The frail, elderly Miami Gardens resident would spend nearly 24 hours on the cold tile floor before firefighters broke in to rescue her, and there is no telling how much longer she would have lain there, or if she’d even be alive today were it not for the NeighborhoodHELP™ (Health Education Learning Program) team.

“We knocked on the door and we didn’t get an answer,” said Faisal Rahim, a second year medical student at the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. Rahim is one of the members of an interprofessional team that visits Triebwasser once a month as part of the Green Family Foundation NeighborhoodHELP™, a key component of the College of Medicine curriculum.

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