Transforming Medicine Campaign
We are not permitted to choose the frame of our
destiny, but what we put into it is ours.
—Nobel Laureate Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961)
Bringing science to teens
By Kate Villars
A recent grant to Dartmouth Medical School from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) will allow DMS faculty and graduate students to team up with high school science teachers and their students in a number of new science education initiatives.The fiveyear, $750,000 grant will fund a pilot project designed to enhance high-school health and science education in New Hampshire. Six school districts across the state will participate in the project, starting with Mascoma Valley, Newmarket, and Northumberland.
The grant is part of HHMI's nationwide Precollege Science Education Initiative,which seeks to stimulate interest in science by connecting the unique resources of biomedical research institutions with local schools. In a highly competitive process,DMS was one of only 31 institutions to receive the prestigious grant, out of 127 eligible research schools and hospitals that applied.
Fostering inquisitiveness
According to Dr. Stephen
Spielberg, dean of DMS,"Our
mission is to train outstanding
leaders in medicine and science,
and we recognize that
such excellence often begins
with inquisitiveness in high
school science classes. I firmly
believe that we have the responsibility,
as New Hampshire's
only academic medical
center, to make an impact on
the quality of science education in our region and state."
Dr. Rosemary Orgren, a research assistant professor of community and family medicine at DMS and director of the New Hampshire Area Health Education Center (AHEC), will lead the DMS HHMI program, Promoting Science Literacy among High School Students in New Hampshire. Other collaborators include the New Hampshire Department of Education and the New Hampshire Science Teachers' Association.
Profound impact
"We are honored and delighted
to be one of the recipients of
the HHMI award," says Orgren.
"We believe the program
we've designed will have a profound
impact on how our
schools teach science and
health and how students become
engaged and learn about
these subjects."
Program activities will include a summer institute to bring science and health teachers together with Dartmouth faculty and the Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich, Vt., helping educators develop hands-on, inquiry-based teaching methods and curriculum. Other projects will target students, both in classroom settings and individually, teaching them how to think like scientists. DMS graduate students in the M.P.H. program will provide one-on-one mentoring and lead a Health Detectives Club, in which teens will be challenged with simulations and case studies based on real events.And each year, 20 Howard Hughes Research Scholars will participate in a summer academy, follow-up summer seminars, a year-long community-based research project, and written and oral presentation of their work.
"We think we've got a great chance with this program to serve educators and students," observes Orgren, "while offering our graduate students a valuable teaching and mentoring opportunity."
Sam Rowse: Innovator and altruist
Growing up in a family where his parents gave him confidence that "you could do whatever you wanted to do," Sam Rowse is as driven to do the right things in retirement as he was during his career in business. That includes helping improve the lives of people in northern New England.
The retired president of Veryfine Products, Inc., an innovative New England-based corporation, Rowse spent almost 30 years with the firm. His grandfather, Arthur Rowse, started working for the company in 1894 and bought it in 1900. Sam Rowse became Veryfine's president in 1989 and retired when the firm was sold to Kraft Foods in 2004.
Under his family's direction, Veryfine was the first company to create a vending machine for juices, the first to package juice in aluminum cans, the first to package single-serve juices and fruit drinks in plastic, and the first to market zero-calorie, full-flavored water—Fruit2O.
As leaders of one of the nation's most successful businesses, Rowse and his family understood the importance of giving their employees a way to be a part of the enterprise. "We never said our employees worked for us," Rowse explains. "We wanted them working with us, and that's a very real distinction. It was one of the keys to our success. "When the company was sold, Rowse and his family carved out millions of dollars from the proceeds to give back to the employees.
Positive family values and working with people clearly influence how Rowse chooses to spend his time today as well. Understandably proud of his business acumen, the retired executive is now eagerly applying his skills to help DHMC advance its work, especially in children's care and cancer. "My children use the hospital," he says. "And my grandson was born at CHaD [the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth]. Another grandchild is on the way, too, so that brings all that [caring for children] to the fore."
Making a difference
Losing a brother to an aggressive
form of brain cancer some
years ago led Rowse to also
volunteer to help Dartmouth's
Norris Cotton Cancer Center.
He is a member of the Cancer
Center Director's Advisory
Board and of the NCCC
Working Group, which is raising
money for theTransforming
Medicine Campaign.
Rowse sees these activities as
ways he can help contribute to
finding solutions to cancer.
He also contributes to DHMC in a more direct fashion, having made generous donations to the Medical Center's annual fund, to the James W. Varnum Quality Health Care Endowment Fund, and to the 2005 Transforming Medicine Campaign Gala.
Rowse explains his focus on DHMC this way:"I guess you'd say I have a real . . . altruistic kind of bent, an interest in being able to make a difference—not just [in] helping, but in making a difference."
Raising the bar
The financial goal of the Transforming
Medicine Campaign for
Dartmouth Medical School and
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical
Center is to raise $250 million
by 2009. Even more far-reaching
is its goal of "raising the bar"
in medicine. Of questioning
assumptions—respecting tradition
but not following it blindly.
Of erasing boundaries—translating
science from the lab bench
to the bedside by connecting researchers
with clinicians. Of creating
solutions to the nation's
most critical health-care issues.
Of transforming medicine.
A banner year
It was a banner year for both the
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Annual
Fund (DHAF) and the Fund for
DMS. In the year ending June
30, 2007, 3,000 DHAF donors—including 80% of DHMC's
clinical faculty and every trustee
of the Clinic and Hospital—gave
a record-breaking $726,000.And
over 1,000 alumni, parents, and
friends gave $577,000 to the
Fund for DMS.The two annual
funds are important sources of
unrestricted revenue for DMS
and DHMC. In the constantly
changing environment of health
care, these monies can be directed
to the areas of greatest need,
offering fiscal flexibility to seize
opportunities to enhance the institution's
work as a leading academic
medical center. One of
the goals of theTransforming
Medicine Campaign is to raise
$10 million in unrestricted gifts
through annual giving.
Learning more
For more about the Transforming Medicine Campaign, visit http://transmed.dartmouth.edu