Rebecca Finn
Before I started the residency program in preventive medicine I had already completed my residency in internal medicine and my fellowship in infectious diseases, and I had been working in private practice as an infectious disease physician. Some of the aspects of infectious diseases I enjoyed most were learning about infection control practices, the effect of antimicrobial resistance on the care of both inpatients and outpatients, and the epidemiology of AIDS. I have recently developed an interest in health care of the jail population, and continue to work part-time taking care of the HIV population at the Albany County Jail. Currently I am taking classes at the school of public health, and thinking of potential rotations for my second year of the preventive medicine residency, and loving it!

Carolyn Grosvenor
After more than 20-years in the practice of Internal Medicine, I returned to school to pursue a MPH degree and a second specialty in Preventive Medicine. I was frustrated with how health care was being delivered and its apparent lack of effect on health outcomes in the inner-city community. I had many questions but lacked the knowledge or skills necessary to pursue alternative models of health care delivery.

I am currently employed by the VA Health Care system in Albany, NY. I am working in a clinical position while continuing my studies in public health and research methods. My goal is to transition out of clinical medicine and into research in the field of Health Literacy. I am particularly interested in developing alternative models of health care education and delivery to increase the health literacy, and thereby improve the health outcomes, of disadvantaged and other at-risk persons.

Joseph Nicholas
I completed the Preventive Medicine Residency in July 2005, after finishing a combined clinical residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. I have just joined the faculty in the University of Rochester School of Medicine as a clinical instructor in the Department of Medicine, and anticipate an appointment in the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine sometime during this year. My interests are fairly diverse and include the education of health professionals, childhood and adolescent nutrition, and federal and state public health policy. The PMR program in Albany was really able to meet all of my interests and needs, and provided me with a wide variety of opportunities and professional relationships that I expect will positively influence my career in many ways. The program really opened my eyes to the many different determinants of health and disease, and the importance of collaboration between many professionals and community members to impact the public’s health.

Renee Samelson
My joining the preventive medicine residency was a change in lifestyle decision. Since graduating medical school in 1976, I have established a primary care clinic in Appalachia, completed an ob-gyn residency and maternal-fetal medicine fellowship, participated in national perinatal HIV research in the NIH, and taught medical students and residents at a major medical center. Having always been interested in social inequities and social justice issues particularly in women, I have been learning how these problems can be better addressed on a population level. This residency program has exposed me to the incredible resources in the New York State Department of Health including the broad range of superior individuals devoted to improving the public's health and the enormous data collection which is available for analysis. Although I am no longer doing emergency C/S's at 2 am, I am working incredibly hard and enjoying the experience.

Seira Kurian
Even prior to starting my residency in Pediatrics I had been alerted to the broader health aspects prevalent in the general population, but it wasn’t until the third year of my Pediatric Residency at Albany Med that I became aware of the unique opportunities available to physicians through the Preventive Medicine Residency program. I elected to do a one-month rotation that year through the state health department. A few of the projects I worked on included taking part in an E. coli outbreak at a correctional facility and also reviewing and compiling survey data related to hospital compliance rates with neonatal Hep B vaccine administration. The experiences I had that month motivated me to join the Preventive Medicine Residency Program, which I started in July of 2002. I am currently finishing my first year and will be starting my rotations through the state and county health departments in the summer.

Rachel De Long
I am finishing the residency in December 2003. Originally from the Midwest, I grew up in both Wisconsin and Massachusetts. I earned my undergraduate degree in Rural Sociology at Cornell University, and went on to receive my medical degree from University of Wisconsin. During this time I worked as a counselor at Planned Parenthood clinics in Ithaca, Chicago, and Madison. In Wisconsin my husband and I also ran a small organic vegetable farm. I completed a PGY-1 year in Family Practice at the Guthrie Clinic in Sayre, PA before joining the PMR program. Although I enjoy many aspects of clinical medicine, I feel that my interests, which include maternal & child health, mental health, and nutrition, are better addressed from a preventive medicine/community health perspective.

Andrew Sebby
I graduated from the residency program in June 2003. My particular preventive medicine interests are in occupational & environmental health. As such, my MPH concentration was in Environmental Health & Toxicology (EHT) and I tailored my practicum year experiences to fit my interests, doing rotations at the Eastern New York Occupational & Environmental Health Center and at the General Electric occupational medicine program, and focusing on environmental health issues during my county health department rotation. After graduation, I accepted a position as the medical director of an occupational medicine clinic in Dothan, Alabama. I'm excited about the challenges that lie ahead, and feel the residency has prepared me well to meet them head on.

Debra S. Blog
I am a pediatrician and had been out of residency for nine years before starting this program. I have always worked in public health settings in both Denver, Colorado and Chicago, Illinois. I have interests in special needs children, developmental delays, attention deficit disorder, HIV, and the effects of the environment on children's health. The Preventive Medicine Residency gave me skills to enable me to approach the health care system in new and creative ways and to analyze public health problems in depth. After graduation, I took a position with the NYSDOH as medical director of the immunization program.

Robert Westphal
A brief experience at the Hospital Albert Schweitzer in Deschappelles, Haiti, coupled with a very extended experience caring for people with hematologic problems, led me to wonder about better ways of looking at the health of the larger community. The opportunity to work on worldwide blood transfusion problems while based in Geneva, Switzerland, for 3 years, during which time major changes in health care delivery were occurring here at home, strengthened this interest. The academic portions of the Preventive Medicine Residency here in Albany were both interesting and challenging; the practical portions - seminars, practicum rotations - offer opportunities to meet, discuss and work with eminent and ordinary folks working in public health today. Want to know what it's like to try and get a poor immigrant kid into prenatal clinic? You can find out here. Interested in working on health care policy, zoonoses, genetic screening, foodborne diseases? Ditto. The flexibility of the program and the professionalism of the staff enable just about anyone to get a good education and a good start on a career in public health, preventive medicine. If you think your role in life is to make a difference for having been here, you should give this a try.

Denise Benkel
After attending the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and completing a PGY-1 in Internal Medicine at the Manhattan VA, I worked for four years as a physician-examiner on the Mobile Examination Centers of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) II. The work was important, and I was really able to explore the United States. My next job was back in Manhattan, working for the New York County Health Services Review Organization, evaluating the appropriateness of home care for Medicaid-eligible clients. From Manhattan I went on to Richmond, Virginia, as a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer stationed at the Virginia Department of Health for two years. My work there included investigating outbreaks of communicable diseases, conducting influenza surveillance each winter, and working at the 1997 Boy Scout Jamboree-ensuring, with a fellow EIS officer, that the 35,000 Scouts, adult leaders, and staff stayed as healthy as possible. The PMR program honed skills acquired mainly during medical school and EIS, taught me new skills, and provided very important credentials to enable me to continue to pursue a career in public health. My interests are mainly in chronic disease, particularly tobacco control and environmental health, although after two years investigating communicable disease outbreaks in Virginia I am also very comfortable with this aspect of public health. After completing my residency in June 2000, I moved back to Manhattan to work for the New York City Health Department as a medical officer in their Child Health Initiative, an effort to improve rates of immunization, lead poisoning screening, and other preventive services for low income children. In the months following the attacks on the World Trade Center, I helped fit rescue workers with respirators at Ground Zero and assisted on the response to the anthrax attacks.

Karin Small Wurapa
As far back as I can remember, women's health issues and concerns about national and international healthcare systems have been on the forefront of my mind. Perhaps my experiences overseas in Jamaica and Mexico, and even here in the US, highlighted how the status of a people depends on their physical, mental and spiritual well-being. A Master of Public Health program and residency training in Obstetrics/Gynecology and Family Medicine, confirmed for me the powerful role that physicians can and must play as facilitators of health, at both the individual and community levels. Flexibility, focus, and nurturing of personal excellence were the things that attracted me to the practicum year of the PMR program here at the NYSDOH. I strive for balance between my family life and my commitment to mentoring adolescents, teaching about health, and maintaining the zeal for medicine that clinical practice affords me. All of these interests give me a passion to solve problems and to understand how to use the principles of science and economics to create good health policy. It often seems that in this system problems are dismissed, saying "that's politics". I try to remember that my patient's life, my child's life, and even my own life are on the line, and I'm here to make it more than "just politics!"

Barbara A. Oettgen
I joined the practicum year of the Preventive Medicine Residency in July 2000. My interest in public health began during my training as a general pediatrician when I spent some time in Kenya. There I saw how much greater the impact of public health interventions (such as immunizations) were on the health of children than the limited treatment that was available to them once they were already sick. As a practicing pediatrician in the US, I continued to be impressed by the large role that public health plays in improving the health and lives of children. My experiences in a number of inner city community clinics demonstrated to me that children still face significant problems related to access to care, especially the indigent and those of different cultures. I obtained an MPH degree (at the University of Texas-Houston) in order to gain skills and knowledge to address the public health needs of children. In the practicum year of the Preventive Medicine Residency, I gained more experience researching health problems, establishing programs to address public health issues, and evaluating interventions. My particular interests include immunizations and communicable disease, access to health care, special needs of immigrant and refugee populations, as well as pediatric injury and child abuse. I had the opportunity to work on all of these issues during the residency, while also continuing with some clinical pediatric work in a community clinic in Albany.

 

All Alumni Since 1992 -- Positions Following Graduation

• Susan Righi, Public Health Physician, TB Control, NYSDOH
• Elaine Schulte, Director, Lead Poisoning Prevention Center, Albany Med
• Mary Applegate, Med Director, Reproductive & Perinatal Health, NYSDOH
• David Hornick, Geriatric Home Care, Schenectady NY
• Leon DeMasi, Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Pennsylvania DOH
• Gene Laigon, Albany County Health Department
• Matt Mauer, Occupational Medicine Physician, NYSDOH
• John Talarico, Medical Director, Immunization Program, NYSDOH
• Jim Tacci, Occupational Medicine & Occupational Health Law, Rochester NY
• Bill Welder, Public Health Physician, Tennessee DOH
• Nancy Wade, Director, Division of Family Health, NYSDOH
• Tom Morris, Public Health Physician, North Carolina DOH
• Cort Lohff, State Epidemiologist, Vermont DOH
• Bob Westphal, Med Dir, Bioterrorism & Public Health Preparedness, SPH
• Denise Benkel, City Medical Officer, New York City DOH
• Marilyn Kacica, Med Dir, Nosocomial Infections Program, NYSDOH
• Karin Wurapa, Med Consultant, Maternal & Child Health, Ohio Department of Health
• Lou Smith, Medical Epidemiologist, HIV/AIDS Epidemiology, NYSDOH
• Barbara Oettgen, Community Pediatrics, Ann Arbor, MI
• Bijoy Mathew, Child Psychiatry Resident, Columbia University
• Chris Ashley, faculty in Clinical Nutrition, Albany Medical Center
• Debra Blog, Medical Director, Immunization Program, NYSDOH
• Andrew Sebby, Medical Director, Occupational Medicine Center, Gothan, AL
• Rachel De Long, Medical Director, Bureau of Child & Adolescent Health, NYSDOH
• Seira Kurian, Assistant Scientific Director, Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. Milwaukee, WI
• Renee Samelson, Medical Coordinator, Office of Professional Medical Conduct, NYSDOH
• Joseph Nicholas, Clinical Instructor, Department of Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine
• Carolyn Grosvenor, Staff Physician, Stratton VA Medical Center, Albany
• Rebecca Finn, Director of HIV Services for the NYC jails, New York
• Laura Kalorin Helton, Medical Director, Newborn Screening, Wadsworh Lab, NYSDOH, Albany
• Heather Mann Dacus, Medical Director, Bureau of Chronic Disease Services, Division of Chronic Disease, NYSDOH, Albany
• Sami Bég, Associate Medical Director, U.S. Preventive Medicine, Florida