The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship

March 03, 2010 - ASF's Partnership with Pri-Med Continues with Houston Keynote March 5

In addition to being a Schweitzer Fellow for Life and the creator of the U.S. Schweitzer Fellows Programs, Albert Schweitzer Fellowship (ASF) President Lachlan Forrow, MD, is Director of Ethics and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Last year, he served as leading CME provider Pri-Med’s online expert on matters of ethics and professional responsibility (click here to read his answers to clinicians’ questions about everything from conscientious objection to end of life decisions).

In the latest installation of Pri-Med’s generous and meaningful partnership with ASF, Forrow will take the stage this Friday at Pri-Med Southwest in Houston to deliver a keynote address entitled “Medicine, Healing, and Service: How We Can All Make a Difference in the Social Sector.”

Excitingly, Houston is ASF’s newest program site; the Houston-Galveston Schweitzer Fellows Program launched in 2008 in partnership with Health Care for the Homeless-Houston. So this Pri-Med talk is a terrific chance for the Houston medical community to get involved with–and get inspired by–the work that’s being done by Schweitzer Fellows right in their own backyard.

As we’ve written in previous blog posts, providing primary care is hard (and made even harder by a health care system that deincentivizes the primary care track). In the face of systemic barriers and daily frustrations, remembering why you likely entered medicine in the first place — to heal, to serve, to make a difference — is often difficult.

In his talk this Friday, Dr. Forrow (backed by the powerful examples of Erin Bendure, Bhavika Kaul, and Don Stader — members of the very first class of Houston Schweitzer Fellows) will attempt to help attendees find renewal, reuniting medicine, healing, and service in their daily work.

He’ll do so by emphasizing a powerful idea: the idea that every single clinician in attendance can make a difference by, in Albert Schweitzer’s words, “finding their own Lambarene” – ie, doing what they love most and are best at, and applying that skill in a way that is of service to our fellow human beings and our world.

Forrow will shine a spotlight on the instructive experiences of Bendure, Kaul, and Stader; conference attendees will have the chance to interact with Forrow and the three other Fellows for Life at a Meet & Greet directly following the keynote.

If you’re a Houston-area clinician who is planning on attending Pri-Med Southwest, we hope you’ll stop by and introduce yourself. And even more importantly, we hope you’ll emerge re-energized about the profession you’ve chosen, and confident in your own power to make a difference in the lives of those around you.

Dr. Forrow — and three Schweitzer Fellows — will also be delivering a keynote on medicine, healing, and service on May 7 at Pri-Med West in Anaheim, CA.

Thank you to Pri-Med for your ongoing support of our Fellows and their work to address health disparities!