Volume 1-Fall 1995
News
AMWA Gender Equity Award
Harvard Medical School students have elected Drs. David Potter and Julian Seifter as the 1995 recipients of the American Medical Women's Association Gender Equity Award. Established in 1994, the award recognizes faculty members nation-wide who promote a "gender-fair environment for the education and training of physicians and assure equal opportunities for women and men to study and practice medicine."Selections were made by both male and female students, assisted by Brenda Hoffman, director of academic development and medical students Andrea Marmor '98 and Antonia Stephen '96. Students were asked to select one pre-clinical and one clinical faculty member who demonstrated commitment to the above in both their professional demeanor and activities and in their teaching responsibilities.
Pre-Clinical Award to Neurobiologist
David Potter, the Robert Winthrop Professor of Neurobiology, has been a member of the department of neurobiology since 1969, a professor of neurobiology since 1982, and is the former chair of the department of neurobiology at HMS. He teaches in the human nervous system and behavior course for second year medical students and gives occasional lectures in other courses. Potter notes that this award could be promptly retired if, "we put our minds to it and behave ourselves." Furthermore, he believes that since now more than 50% of the students at the medical school are women, "the medical school is investing at least half of its training resource in women, and it is no longer a useful policy question to ask whether gender equity throughout our professional activities is desirable and urgent." He urges people to, "Think of the alternatives, its implications and consequences."
Clinical Award to Nephrologist
Julian Seifter, associate professor of medicine is a renal specialist at BWH and has been at HMS since 1982. A graduate of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, he teaches physiology to the first year students, human systems to the second year students, and is director of the clinical elective in nephrology at BWH for the third and fourth year students. Seifter believes that "The Medical School by having this award recognizes the profound importance of human connections in the enterprise of medicine. The responsibility of faculty is to demonstrate to the entire community the value of fairness in doctor-patient, student-teacher and student-student relationships."AMWA is the nation's largest organization of women physicians and medical students. Their goal in developing this award was to "help create an environment where all future physicians treat each other, staff, colleagues, other health professionals and their future patients with appropriate respect and sensitivity."
Presentation of the award was made on May 31, 1995 at Faculty Council by William Silen. A permanent plaque with the names of this year's winners inscribed upon it has been placed in the Medical Education Center. The names of all future winners will be added to this plaque.
