Deanah Maxwell, MD, Tuskegee native and daughter of Macon County Commission Chairman Louis Maxwell, graduated from the Tuscaloosa Family Medicine Residency Program on June 19.

Maxwell is a University of Alabama Rural Medical Scholar, graduate of the University of Alabama School of Medicine and a family physician prepared to enter medical practice. She is a member of the seventh class in the Rural Medical Scholars Program (RMSP), which was established in 1996 exclusively for qualified rural students from Alabama who want to become rural primary care physicians in the state.

The special RMSP curriculum, which targets the often unique rural health concerns and issues in small town medical practice, begins with a year of rural community health coursework and field experiences at The University of Alabama and includes four years of medical school at the University of Alabama School of Medicine (UASOM) headquartered in Birmingham. Students in RMSP return to the Tuscaloosa campus of UASOM for clinical training in the last two years of medical school.

Maxwell chose to complete her residency training in Tuscaloosa as well.  She will be in good company since “one in eight of the family physicians in the state are graduates of the Tuscaloosa Family Practice Residency,” said Family Medicine Program Director John Waits, MD, who also practices family medicine in Bibb County and trains resident physicians and medical students in his rural clinic there. Maxwell will complete an additional year of post-graduate medical education at UA as an Academic Fellow in Family Medicine before she establishes her medical practice.

Maxwell was a 1996 Rural Health Scholar as a high school student, served as counselor in the UA Rural Minority Health Scholars summer program and was a graduate assistant in Community and Rural Medicine. She attended summer programs at Tuskegee and Xavier Universities and the Biomedical Symposium for Health Careers in Houston. Her professional goal is to return to her community as a family practitioner.

Maxwell participated in the UA Rural Health Scholars Program at CCHS as an 11th grader at Booker T. Washington High School in Tuskegee. After her graduation from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) with a B.S. in Medical Technology, she became a UA Rural Medical Scholar and medical student at UASOM and the College of Community Health Sciences (CCHS) at UA. She has mentored other rural students throughout her career.

“When Deanah served as a counselor for the Minority Rural Pipeline program,” said program director Cynthia Moore, “she was focused and determined that students have the best experience possible. She created a weekly seminar in which the students had to research the different medical fields, the undergraduate institution they would be attending and the academic requirements for the medical school they planned to attend.”

At UAB, Maxwell was Minority Presidential Scholar, Toyota Community Scholar and class president. She earned the Scholastic Medical Technology award for the highest GPA in the program and was named to the President’s list, Dean’s list, and the National Dean’s List. She was admitted to Alpha Lambda Delta, Golden Key and Alpha Eta honor societies. She was also a member of UAB Marching Band, served as the Black Student Awareness Program Chair and Homecoming Chair, and was a resident assistant.

Maxwell was community service chair for Zeta Phi Beta Sorority’s Gamma Theta chapter and volunteered at AIDS Outreach, Alternative Spring Break, Children’s Hospital and Whatley Elementary School.  As a family medicine resident physician in Tuscaloosa, she organized a volunteer medical staff for the Good Samaritan, a local free clinic.

Dr. Maxwell was elected senior class president of medical students at the Tuscaloosa campus of the medical school. She was also chosen by her peers for admission to the Gold Humanism Honor Society because she excelled in clinical care, leadership, professionalism, compassion, patient care and dedication to service.

The medical faculty chose Dr. Maxwell to receive the prestigious Dean’s Award, William R. Willard Award, named for the founding dean of the college. This singular recognition is awarded annually to a senior medical student for outstanding contributions to the goals and missions of the College of Community Health Sciences.

She also received national recognition when she won the 2008 Student Achievement Award from the National Rural Health Association (NRHA). The Award was presented to Maxwell during NRHA’s Annual Conference in New Orleans, which attracted 900 rural health professionals and students and featured the U.S. Surgeon General as keynote speaker.

The City of Savannah will be the site for the 19th Annual Consortium of Doctors Conference. Headlining the activities of this year’s meeting is the Bouquet of Doctors Banquet where The Savannah Tribune owner and president, Mrs. Shirley Barber James, will receive the organization’s most prestigious honor, “The COD Humanitarian Award.”

COD is an organization comprised of women who have earned doctoral degrees from accredited institutions. The Co-Director and Savannah native, Dr. Harriette Bias-Insignares (Nashville, Tennessee) said, “The purpose of COD is to bring this brain trust together to address issues regarding the African-American community, especially the African-American family, the African-American male, and the importance of instilling the core values of scholarship and citizenship among our youth. We have taken the direction of being a Think Tank because we believe that having large numbers of members is not as important as assembling the best and brightest to blend the quality of debate, discussion, and decision making with focused, targeted goals that can be accomplished across the spectrum of human activity and affiliations.”

James came to the attention of the organization through its founder, Dr. Abigail Jordan, who described her as “an ambassador for the city” based on her travel to represent the city outside of the state of Georgia. Jordan said, “Shirley James is a community advocate, a citizen of the times, and a woman of broad accomplishment as an educator, a business woman, and a community worker for all segments of the city. But what is most notable is the fact that she is down to earth and beloved by so many persons whose lives she has touched.”

A member and Senior Steward at St. Philip AME Church, James has received many awards locally and nationally, including national recipient of the 1997 Athena Award; the Helen V. Head Small Business Advocate of the Year Award; listing in The HistoryMakers; and Ebony Magazine’s selection to The 100 Most Influential Black Americans and Organization Leaders in 1995 and 1996. Recently, she was chosen as one of the 2010 Top Ten Working Women of the Year awarded by A Working Woman in Need, Inc. (AWWIN).

Regarding James’ national outreach, COD Director Dr. Barbara Cannon of Oakland, California said, “Mrs. James served as the 15th National President of Jack and Jill of America, Inc. (1994 – 96) and President of the National Executive Board of Sophisticates, Inc. (2001 – 2003).

On the local level, she has served as president and held other offices in Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, The Links, Incorporated, and the Sophisticates.

Cannon said, “COD extends an invitation to all Savannah organizations, churches, and members of the community to join us in honoring Mrs. James for her community service at the Bouquet of Doctors Banquet.”

Banquet tickets are $60 per person and $600 per table. Tickets can be purchased at the Office of Dr. W. Esther McAlpine, 704 Abercorn Street, Savannah, Georgia 31401.

For information call (912) 231-9828.

She will join other high school students from around the country who demonstrate academic excellence, leadership potential and an interest in a career in medicine.

Through the 10-day forum, NYLF/MED will introduce students to a variety of concepts in public health, medical ethics, research and general practice and will include site visits to medical facilities and clinics. She will engage in simulation using problem-based learning, an educational method in which students will be presented a fictional patient’s case history and must diagnose and develop a treatment plan for the patient.

“Each student may very well be the face of the future of medicine,” said NYLF Dean of Academic Affairs Dr. Marguerite C. Regan. “The National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine creates a virtual classroom with hospital, clinical facilities and health care professionals. By shadowing key personnel, these students will have a great opportunity to gain a behind-the-scenes perspective on a medical career. Timing is critical as young people explore their career paths, just prior to immersing themselves in college course work.”

In addition to visiting cutting-edge medical schools and clinical facilities, Jasmine will have the opportunity to hear from and interact with leaders within the medical field. Students engage in personal contact with physicians, surgeons, researchers, scientists and medical educators as they view these professionals at work.

NYLF is an educational organization that brings various professions to life, empowering outstanding young people with the confidence to make well-informed career choices. NYLF has provided programming to more than 100,000 young people.

Dr. O. Tom Johns and Dr. Kyle Joyner of Tennessee Orthopedic Alliance and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Pi Nu Omega Chapter were key contributors in Jasmine Hicks attending the NYLF Medical Forum.

Jasmine Hicks is the daughter of Patrick and Rosalyn Hicks of Murfreesboro.

When Mill Etienne’s family fled Haiti in 1981, he was just 5 years old, not much bigger than the broken little body now stretched before him on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort. Growing up in suburban New York, Etienne had wanted to sever any connection to that violent, impoverished Caribbean nation. He sought a comfortable American life and cringed at the sound of his family’s tropical lilt. He acted as if every book he devoured and every test he aced could help him forget the squalor. But when he turned on the TV the first night after Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake, he knew almost instantly that, as a neurologist and one of the few in the Navy who speaks Creole, he not only had to be there, he wanted nothing more.

Late last week, when Etienne bent over the seriously injured boy, with a foot wrapped in bandages to the knee and an intravenous line running from his little hand, he spoke softly to him in his native tongue. And he knew, with certainty, that he was doing his life’s work.

“The two countries that I’ve grown to know and love all my life, now I [am] on a mission to serve them both,” he said.

Lt. Cmdr. Etienne, 34, is one of the 1,100 doctors, nurses and support staff aboard the Comfort, a hospital ship that sailed from Baltimore to help some of Haiti’s most seriously injured quake victims.

On board, he is equal parts doctor and diplomat, in demand to treat patients and to help the medical staff and Haitians understand one another. As the ship sailed south, Etienne led its staff through a crash course in Creole.

As the only doctor and only officer aboard who speaks the French-based dialect, he worked with 15 others during the trip to arrange cultural awareness seminars and write a manual describing Haiti’s history and people.

“When they see a doctor that speaks their language, they feel like they’re at home, like this guy is looking out for them,” he said. “They’re going to trust me.”

Etienne and his seven brothers and sisters grew up in a town called Spring Valley, in suburban New York. His father drove a cab; his mother cleaned houses. Though their English was poor, his parents made sure their kids understood the value of education.

The message clearly got through to the young Mill.

Vinci Etienne remembers his little brother being so excited about school that he would be up and dressed earlier than anyone else, standing at the front door with his lunch box.

Mill Etienne knew in high school that he wanted to be a doctor. He won admission to Yale. His sister, Murille, suspects that some of his drive to excel stems from watching his parents struggle to make a living.

“It frustrated him to see how hard my parents worked, wanting us to have everything they didn’t have,” she said. “He tried very hard to be the best.”

It was in high school that Etienne, on a path to success himself, became almost obsessed with helping underprivileged children join him.

While in 10th grade, he was the creator and host of a local cable television show that spotlighted role models, and he tutored the neighbor’s kids. After he started at Yale, he’d make the nearly two-hour trip home once a month to tape new episodes.

He won a prestigious Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans in 1998 that largely paid for his medical degree at New York Medical College. More than a decade later, fellowship director Warren Illchman remembers him as a standout in his pool of achievers.

“When I got his e-mail saying he was going to Haiti, I was not surprised. He was never looking just to be a doctor. He wanted to be a doctor to do something.”

In medical school, Etienne volunteered to be a mentor to young people in the Bronx, tutoring them in physics and helping them to prepare for college interviews.

“Even after he graduated, he’d come back on Saturdays to help teach,” said Marva Richards, who coordinates the volunteer program and came to know Etienne as a person she could call when she needed anything. “I think it’s just his nature. I always say, ‘Some people are born to be healers,’ and he’s really that kind of person – a real doctor.”

After medical school, he signed on with the Navy, completed his residency in neurology at Columbia University Medical Center, and then simultaneously earned a master’s degree in public health while completing two more fellowships. Somehow, Etienne, who is single, also found time to tutor minority high school students through a chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha service fraternity based in Harlem.

His hospital colleagues were appalled that he was joining the military.

“They thought it was career suicide,” Etienne said.

He says they couldn’t have been more wrong. He liked taking care of patients in New York, but says taking care of the troops is even more fulfilling. He feels better helping those who have made deep sacrifices, those who have literally given themselves for their country.

It’s not that Etienne is so patriotic. His desire to become an American citizen only evolved after medical school when it occurred to him: “Wow, I’ve really gotten a lot from being in the United States. I’m really proud to be here, and I want to be an American. One day, it just struck me.”

Etienne has been on active duty in Bethesda, where a large Navy hospital is located, since August. He has offered to help the medical center start an epilepsy center, his specialty.

And he’s thrilled that his service is taking him to Haiti. Hours after the earthquake, he’d gone into his office to resolve all of his projects so that he would be free to take leave and head to the disaster site. But before Etienne could ask his supervisor for time off, he heard the Comfort crew needed a neurologist and promptly volunteered.

“I was like, ‘Oh, so you’re going to pay me to go do what I’d be doing anyway?’ ” he said, laughing. “This is what I’d be doing right now, regardless.”

Etienne’s mother wept when she heard that her son was on his way to Haiti – not out of fear but out of joy.

With her son aboard the Comfort this week, Marie Etienne was in the Dominican Republic, trying to get to Haiti. The family still has many relatives and friends there.

Etienne last visited Haiti on vacation in 2004. He was not treated like a native. They knew somehow that he was an American. Perhaps it was his clothes, his accent, maybe his conspicuous lack of poverty.

This time, he’s hoping to be one of them. In essence, anyway. He’s pretty sure it’s why God told him to join the Navy.

He’s met dozens of Haitians already, the patients quickly filling the ship’s 1,000 beds. He’s listened to their terrible stories – about houses falling on top of them, how in a matter of seconds, they became homeless with five children in tow. He’s seen the paralyzed and those who have lost limbs.

But he has also seen a lot of people smiling. And he’d like to think he’s had a hand in that.

“You can’t save everyone,” Etienne said. “But we can help as many as we can.”