Class Notes Bolstering Rural Health Recognition for a distinguished alum Something to celebrate

1979 Barbara Kerr, MPH, is a financial advisor with Legg Mason Wood Walker, Inc., where she helps individuals structure investments in socially conscious ways. "It is exciting to help clients put their money to work in companies that don't harm the environment, don't manufacture tobacco, and that do have a good record of hiring and promoting women and minorities," Kerr writes. "Through a tangent from my original training, I am applying analytical skills to achieve social responsibility - a valid role for a public health professional!" 1982 Edwin Trevathan, MPH, 82M, has relocated to St. Louis to direct the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at Washington University and St. Louis Children's Hospital. 1984 Dixie E. Snider, MD, MPH, has been promoted to Assistant Surgeon General in the United States Public Health Service. 1986 Gail Schneider Mitchell, MPH, RDH, recently accepted a new position as coordinator of academic programs for the University of Florida College of Dentistry. Craig Schwimmer, MPH, 91M, is an attending faculty member in the Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore as well as an instructor of otolaryngology at Johns Hopkins. 1988 Helen B. Mackley, MPH, recently served as a team leader of an Australian World Bank project in the Philippines, the Urban Poor Health and Nutrition Project. The project served 6 million urban poor in 21 municipalities in metropolitan M anila, metropolitan Cebu, and Mindanao. Currently, she is completing her doctoral dissertation, comparing findings of the 1995 Bangladesh survey on urban poverty in Dhaka and major urban centers and the 1995 Philippines Baseline survey of urban slum famil ies in Manila, Cebu, and Mindanao. 1990 Tracy Lynn Jensen, MPH, MBA, has accepted a new position as program coordinator in the US Health Care Financing Administration. She will serve as a liaison for Medicare and Medicaid policy analysis. Rosemary McKaig, MPH, completed her PhD in epidemiology at UNC-Chapel Hill in December 1997. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Dental Ecology, UNC-School of Dentistry. 1991 Christina Lorenz Wayne, MPH, RN, is a health educator with a childhood lead poisoning prevention program with Stanislaus County Public Health Department in Modesto, California. 1992 Jodi Seitz Kobrinsky, MPH, was married on March 14, 1998. John Robitscher, MPH, and his wife, Linda, had a baby, Walker Shepherd, on November 11, 1997. For his other accomplishments, see the profile in this section. 1994 In February 1997, Mary Elster, MPH, married Colin Peters. They live in St. Louis, Missouri, where Mary works for BJC Health System. Natalie Holthaus, the daughter of Anne Holthaus, MPH, MN, and Brian Holthaus, is pleased as punch to have a baby brother, Drew James, born on October 28, 1997. Christopher C. Stowers, MPH, married Tracy Vodenicker, a University of Florida graduate, in Orlando in March. Chris is a senior managed care analyst at Orlando Regional Healthcare System. 1995 Melissa Jefferson, MPH, MSN, is a family nurse practitioner with Aegis in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Mark Kashdan, MPH, is a third-year law student at Georgia State and works as a law clerk at Jones & Granger in Atlanta. Molly Lindner, MPH, a senior project associate at Georgetown University, married her long-time beau, Hector Hernandez, on May 16, 1998. According to Molly, "A number of my old dear Emory friends were there either in person or spirit." She's looking forward to married and family life. Quimby McCaskill, MPH, is a third-year medical student at Albany Medical College. 1996 Elizabeth Louise Atkins, MPH, 90C, is a medical student at the University of West Virginia. Grant Baldwin, MPH, received Employee of the Year Award from CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Jennifer Sayles Harville, MPH, is project coordinator at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. She married David Harville, 97G, a mathematical statistician at the US Census Bureau on May 2, 1998. Deborah Isenberg, MPH, CHES, recently changed jobs. She left the Washoe County District Health Department in Reno, Nevada, to return to Emory as a project manager. Tina-Lynn Paul, MPH, married Daniel Budnitz, 98M, MPH, on May 24, 1998. While at Emory, Tina directed the Graduate Certificate Program at the school, and Dan, a Woodruff scholar, completed his joint degree. He has begu n a residency at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Kira S. Sloop, MPH, is a research associate at Macro International in Atlanta. Doug Thoroughman, PhD, and his wife, Gwen, recently adopted three daughters: Rosa, Celli, and Joselyn, ages 5, 3, and 1. "We are doing well and everyone is adjusting fine," Doug writes. Kathryn Wallace, MPH, and Stephen Boschulte were married on July 11, 1998 in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. They now reside in Columbia, Maryland. 1997 Susan Clancy, MPH, MSN, is working in a rural Alaska native community, providing health care to a village of 90 people as part of the National Health Corps. Christopher Duperier, MPH, is entering medical school at Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans. Randy E. Durvin, MPH, 92C, began a doctoral program in epidemiology at the University of Alabama (UAB) at Birmingham this fall. His fellowship is funded by the National Cancer Institute. Durvin's fiancée Jennifer E. Grass, 98MPH, 97N, began work in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children's Hospital at UAB in August. Warwick Anthony May, MPH, and his wife, Sandra May, have returned to Australia after six years of work and study at Emory. They announce the birth of a second daughter, Rachel. Mary Wieczynski, MPH, is coordinating the IEC program of a regional Central American AIDS prevention social marketing project for Population Services International. Sara Zywicki, MPH, who works at CDC as a prevention coordinator, is an Emory candidate in the year 2001. 1998 Joel London, MPH, a health fair coordinator for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Georgia, and his wife, Lori, moved into their first house on July 5th.

We'd like to hear from you, too. Send us a note.

---

t might be called health care's silent crisis. Throughout Georgia and other states, rural communities are threatened by the lack of adequate health care services and personnel, with hospital closings, and wi th poorer overall health than their urban counterparts. John Robitscher, 92MPH, 83C, 81Ox, who spent roughly the past five years as a faculty member in rural health development at the University of Georgia (UGA), knows of these problems firsthand. His background, including a term as president of the Georgia Rural Health Association, helped propel him into the job he now holds as director of the Office of Rural Health in Georgia's Department of Human Resources. Ironically, Robitscher's first brush with rural health care began at Grady Memorial Hospital in the heart of downtown Atlanta. There, he helped administer the hospital's neighborhood clinics through Emory School of Medicine's Department of Family and P reventive Medicine. "Gradually that program grew to include the development of primary care centers in rural areas and the provision of technical assistance," Robitscher says. He became a member of the state's Advisory Council on Rural Health, which lead to his job at UGA. While the position there was similar to his current job, he was able to work with only one or two communities a year. "The influence of this office will b e much broader," he says. Since 1990, eight of Georgia's rural hospitals have closed. Approximately another 30 are threatened with closure. Twenty-two Georgia counties have no hospitals at all. "Keeping hospitals open may not be the best recourse, according to Robitscher. "I think that we are learning - and this is a hard lesson to be learned - that saving hospitals is not always going to be in the best interest of the community." He is trying to help communities learn more about their options, which may include saving a hospital or changing the way that hospital does business. "Maybe these communities don't need a full-blown hospital," Robitscher says, "but rather a home health center with an emergency room or other types of services." Robitscher sees his office as a source of support, resources, and technical assistance to help rural communities empower themselves. "They know the issues involved as well as the barriers to health care. They have everything within their own abilities to choose their health care system." - Stacey Noiles Jones

As director of the Office of Rural Health in Georgia's Department of Human Resources, John Robitscher (right) works with Commissioner Tommy Olmstead to empower rural communities to be healthy.

---

uring alumni weekend in September, the Rollins School of Public Health presented its third Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award to Erica Frank. A faculty member in Emory School of Medicine's Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, Frank is the principal investigator of the Women Physicians' Health Study, which examines the health behaviors, medical and social history, and counseling practices of 10,000 women physicians. She describes the study as "an example of low cost, interdisciplinary scholarship." Already Frank and her collaborators on and off campus have found that when compared with the general female population, women physicians practice healthier habits. Frank holds an MD from Mercer University School of Medicine in addition to her MPH from the Rollins School of Public Health, where her studies focused on health education and epidemiology.

Alumna Erica Frank, a faculty member at the Emory School of Medicine, is PI of the Women Physicians' Health Study and serves on the Dean's Committee on the Status of Women.

---

t was time to celebrate again this year as the Graduating Class Gift Campaign succeeded in raising additional support for the Rollins School of Public Health, and what better way to celebrate than with an ic e cream social, a tradition that began last year. The campaign raised nearly $12,000 for student scholarships and was matched by funds from the Dean's office. Joining the party were (l to r): Gena Hill (99); Eric Pevzner, 98MPH; Jessica Shisler (99); Jocelyn Patterson (99); and Leslie Teach, 98MPH.