by Rhonda Mullen or the past 14 years, Lynne Feldman has worked as a district health director in south Georgia. For at least ten of those years, she's looked for a way to get additional academic training in public health with out having to leave her job. This fall, she found such a program at the Rollins School of Public Health. Feldman is enrolled in the Graduate Certificate Program at Emory (GCPE), which allows students to complete half of the coursework required for an MPH while holding down full-time jobs. Once she completes the one-year, Internet-based GCPE, she plans to continue her training by enrolling in the Career MPH, now in development at the school. Feldman, a board-certified pediatrician with an MD from the Medical College of Georgia, feels an academic public health education will enhance her skills in providing public health leadership for the South Health District she serves. She returned to sc hool some years ago to take summer classes in epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. However, at that time before the concept of distance learning was conceived, neither Minnesota nor schools in other states offered a degree option that accommodated working professionals. "I had a job and two small children," Feldman says. "I wondered why the school couldn't offer me some way to receive my training without requiring me to be on campus. I even asked, 'Why can't you accommodate me? What is it that you hope for your gradua tes?' They told me, 'We hope they get a job like yours.'" In more recent years, the Internet has given educators a new teaching tool. The Career MPH at Emory, for example, will offer coursework, homework, and tests on-line. To recognize Feldman's already significant accomplishments and to encourage her return to the virtual classroom, the School of Public Health has awarded her a William Randolph Hearst Fellowship. The Hearst Foundation has endowed a scholarship fund spec ifically for mid-career professionals who seek formal academic training in public health. The fellowship encourages involvement in interventions to modify major public health problems - in other words, just such work as Feldman does in her day-to-day care er. She also has received a scholarship from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that allows health professionals to participate in the GCPE, covering tuition, books, lodging, and a laptop computer. As district health director, Feldman serves ten rural counties in south Georgia. She is the medical director of all the health departments in her region, creating and approving all protocols used in the health clinics. She is frequently consulted on pr imary care activities for many of the direct services offered by the health departments. Additionally, she studies and tracks disease trends in her district, including recent outbreaks of E. coli 0157 and Shigella. When residents of the small town of Alapaha feared a cancer epidemic in their community, it was Feldman to w hom they turned for reassurance. Through a comparison of cancer trends in the county with those from neighboring counties, she was able to show that recent deaths of individuals in Alapaha failed to indicate an epidemic. Feldman's most significant accomplishments during her tenure as district health director have been in the improvement of services for children and families. She organized the Lowndes County Child Abuse Council, which initiated child abuse prevention pr ograms in local schools, as well as the Lowndes Commission on Children and Youth, which has evolved into a collaborative county planning group. She organized the public health component of child services, developing local public health outreach, immunizat ion, early intervention, assessment, and service coordination programs for children. Feldman believes that the specialties of pediatrics and public health are a natural fit. "One of the aims of public health is wellness, the prevention of disease," she says. "That is the goal of pediatrics, too. Pediatricians do more well exams than an y other medical specialty. We are active not only in prevention, for example, immunizations, but also in health education. Early intervention is a common concept for both public health and pediatrics." Currently, Feldman wants to complete a major survey of the district population on their concerns about major health problems and risks in the region. In turn, she wants to be able to present those beliefs in a statistically reporting format. That is on ly one of the projects she will be able to complete once she has saturated herself in the topics taught in epidemiology, biostatistics, and other departments at the school. The Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education should be able to give her additional tools to meet her most challenging assignment, to coordinate community involvement in the region. She'll be looking for answers, too, on how to make the most of resources in a district that has high rates of stroke and cardiovascular diseas e. This return to school "will clearly enhance my abilities in public health, particularly in data analysis and interpretation, needs assessment, and public health leadership," Feldman says.

Pediatrician Lynne Feldman has targeted much of her efforts as a district health director in South Georgia towards children's services in the ten rural counties she serves. While continuing to hold down that position, she's returned to sc hool to pursue academic training in public health.