Three Feinberg medical students have been named 2024-2025 Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows, as part of a program to support the design and implementation of innovative projects to address the health needs of underserved Chicago communities.
Second-year medical student Brian Carter, JD, and fourth-year medical students Ateh Fonteh and Katie Owens were selected as this year’s fellowship recipients.
Named in honor of humanitarian, physician and Nobel laureate Albert Schweitzer, the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program is a year-long service-learning program in which fellows collaborate with local organizations to create projects that improve community wellbeing and target social determinants of health.
For his project, Carter will develop educational modules to train marginalized communities to identify and articulate legal barriers to accessing quality healthcare services. A former practicing attorney, Carter will partner with Legal Council for Health Justice (LCHJ), a legal services provider that forms medical-legal partnerships with healthcare centers across Chicago, to address community-identified barriers by assisting with individual cases and drafting proposed legislation aimed at systemic change.
“For my project, I will seek to amplify the community’s influence at LCHJ via community advisory boards so that they can steer LCHJ toward addressing community-identified legal barriers to health. In the process, I will be empowering community members to become community health advocates,” Carter said.
As dual-degree students in Feinberg’s Master of Public Health program, Fonteh and Owens will complete a joint project, partnering to perform a medical needs assessment and to use the results to initiate workshops about topics including chronic diseases, nutrition and exercise. Fonteh and Owens will work with the Chicago Help Initiative to provide these resources to low-income, refugee and unhoused individuals in the near north side of Chicago.
“With me focused on health literacy and Katie focused on nutrition and exercise, both of us plan on utilizing our public health knowledge to develop relevant educational curriculum and materials. Through education and direct services, participants in these workshops will be empowered with the knowledge and access essential to leading healthier lives,” Fonteh said.
“I chose to conduct ‘Health 101’ classes for the homeless and refugee populations in downtown Chicago because these people are my neighbors, and they are disproportionately barred from access to essential, basic healthcare knowledge and care. My future career as a doctor and public health professional will center the wellbeing of underserved communities on both individual and systemic levels. There is no better place to start than my own community, right here and now,” Owens said.
In addition to their service projects, Carter, Fonteh and Owens will also participate in a thirteen-month program that includes monthly meetings, training, and ongoing opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. Carter, Fonteh and Owens join a network of over 750 Chicago alumni.
The 2024-2025 Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows includes students from 11 schools and nine disciplines, ranging from nursing to art therapy and public health. This year’s class was selected from a competitive pool of almost 150 applicants.
Founded in 1996, the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellowship program is administered by Health & Medicine Policy Research Group. This nationally recognized service-learning program has provided over 120,000 hours of community service to more than 150 community organizations in the Chicagoland area.