C h i r o n i a n
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New York Medical College
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M.P.H. student Kavita Patel, left, along with other students and volunteers, made their way to Rockaway, N.Y., to help with cleaning and restoring flood-damaged houses. Photo by Phuong Vo, another M.P.H. student.
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“I’m originally from New Orleans and survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005,” she says. “My first instinct was: I know what it’s like to be in this situation, and I want to help.” Her work in Far Rockaway, “being in an actual disaster area,” evoked vivid memories. “One lady was in shock. I said: ‘Everything will be okay, it gets back to normal slowly but surely. Trust me, I’ve been there.’ We made a difference. We gave them hope.” Vo also joined medical students, faculty and alumni volunteers who assisted the Westchester County Health Department in distributing free tetanus vaccines to those removing debris during the post-storm cleanup. “People were actually surprised we were so willing and able to help, even though we were ‘just students,’” she says. “Even if we feel helpless, we’re actually very capable. But we’re also not superheroes and we can’t do everything alone. We need to all work together.” Last fall, before Sandy hit, an NYMC medical student group known as the Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS) launched a drive called “Spreading Hope with Soap,” asking fourth-year students traveling for residency interviews to collect hotel toiletries for donation to the homeless. After Superstorm Sandy, though, “the original scope of the project expanded,” says fourth-year Andrew Guajardo. “We had an absolutely huge outpouring of support from the campus, from students, physicians and staff.” Guajardo estimates donating more than 600 items to Metropolitan Hospital. And as the
By the time I finally went to the Rockaways I’d seen thousands of images on a computer screen, yet I wasn’t prepared for the experience of seeing it in person. It was really overwhelming.
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—Gavin Stern, M.P.H. ’13
onset of winter brought a need for jackets, batteries and tools, “our community continued to rise to the demand,” distributing s upplies in the Far Rockaways. Investigating “toxic haze” As a journalism student at SUNY Stony Brook who also was completing his M.P.H. degree in the School of Health Sciences and Practice, Gavin Stern joined NYMC volunteers in Far Rockaway, chronicling the cleanup in a web article and video. “By the time I finally went to the Rockaways I’d seen thousands of images on a computer screen, yet I wasn’t prepared to see it in person,” he says. “It was really overwhelming.” Stern returned twice more to the wreckage site to pursue his findings that the respirator masks distributed to the cleanup crews weren’t substantial enough to prevent discomfort or even infec tion. He credits his study of public health at NYMC with alerting him to the issue. “I wouldn’t have caught it otherwise,” he says.