January 23, 2006

SIU Med School Sets Black History Month Activities

Black History Month will be celebrated with two public events in February at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. Both events will be held at the medical school’s main building at 801 N. Rutledge St., Springfield.

Dr. Vanessa Northington Gamble, Ph.D., will present "Beyond Legacy: The U.S. Public Health Study at Tuskegee" at 7 p.m. Thursday, February 9, in SIU's South Auditorium. Gamble is director of the Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care. The Center, the only bioethics center at an historically black college/university, focuses on bioethics, minority health and public health. Gamble is also professor of bioethics in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health at Tuskegee.

A physician and historian, Gamble is an internationally recognized expert on the history of race and racism in American medicine, racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care, cultural competence, diversity and bioethics. Her book, "Making a Place for Ourselves: The Black Hospital Movement, 1920-1945," was named an outstanding academic book by "Choice," the journal of academic librarians.

The evening program will include African-American musical selections and will be followed by a reception. The talk is organized by SIU's chapter of the Student National Medical Association. Victor Stams, second-year medical student from Chicago, is this year’s chair for Black History Month. The Student National Medical Association is composed of medical and premedical students focused on the needs of minority students across the nation.

An Ethnic Heritage Day, celebrating African-American and African cultures, will be held from noon to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, February 14, in the second-floor lobby. The program features Robert Davis, fiscal officer for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, in a re-enactment, “A Civil War Soldier’s Story: From Slavery to Freedom.” African exhibits and a cultural potluck will complete the program. The School regularly hosts an Ethnic Heritage Day, featuring different cultures and organized by the School's Office of Diversity Multicultural and Minority Affairs.

For more information, contact Dr. Wesley Robinson-McNeese, Diversity, Multicultural and Minority Affairs, at 217-545-7334 weekdays.

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NOTE: Gamble is available to talk to the media at 1:30 p.m. Thursday. Location to be confirmed. She also will speak on the topic of “Understanding Race in the Age of Genomics” at Grand Rounds at 8 a.m. Thursday in Room D228/229, Memorial Medical Center.