Inspiring a student to achieve greatness is no easy task. Ask any professor or mentor. But making a difference in just one student’s life has a vast ripple effect when the student goes on to improve a community over the long term. There are lasting benefits and many feel the effects of positive change.
Harvard Medical School is privileged to have not one, but two extraordinary professors who, on what almost seems to be a routine basis, motivate students to change the world. Joan Reede, HMS dean for diversity and community partnership and associate professor of medicine, and Nancy Oriol, HMS dean for students and associate professor of anesthesia, were among 22 distinguished professors recently recognized by the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Trust Award for inspiring former students to make significant contributions to society.
The trust was established in 2008 to celebrate teachers whose former students made a significant difference in their communities, either by creating an organization, procedure or movement that benefits their community on a lasting basis.
Reede was nominated by Nawal Nour, a former fellow in the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Minority Health Policy fellowship program. Nour, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at HMS, said the fellowship program inspired her to make a positive change in the world, and in 1999, just one year after completing the fellowship, Nour founded the African Women’s Health Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which provides culturally competent care to women who have undergone female genital cutting.
“Although I was no longer a fellow, Dr. Reede continued to be a mentor and advisor. She guided me through the process of grant applications, peer-review publications and how to become an effective communicator,” said Nour, whose efforts at creating the center were recognized by a 2003 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship award.
“Dr. Reede is a remarkably talented leader, teacher, mentor and role model. Despite her many roles and obligations, she has always found the energy and time to listen, advise and encourage me. Her contribution to inspire minorities to pursue careers that improve disparities in health in this country is truly revolutionary. Her passionate and unrelenting contribution to the career achievements of minority men and women is pivotal. In an institution that has bred giants in medicine and humanity, Dr. Reede is indeed one of those giants, and I am honored to be her mentee,” Nour said.
Oriol was nominated by HMS Dean Jeffrey Flier, and Cheryl Dorsey, a former HMS student. Under Oriol’s mentorship in the early 1990s, Dorsey received a fellowship from Echoing Green to launch the Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit that provides basic medical and outreach services to at-risk residents of Boston inner-city neighborhoods. Dorsey later served in two U.S. presidential administrations and is now president of Echoing Green, a pioneering global social venture fund that has awarded more than $30 million in start-up capital to more than 500 social entrepreneurs worldwide.
Oriol described her mentoring relationship with Dorsey as a true partnership.
“We were blazing a new path together. Many local experts believed our idea would not work. We were being social entrepreneurs, and being entrepreneurial engenders a unique type of mentoring relationship—it is not a master/apprentice relationship, because no one is a master of something that has not yet been created—rather, it is a partnership from the very start.”
Their dual inspiration, Oriol said, was to make a real difference by helping others.
“Because we were both striving to provide a service that we thought was essential to the well-being of our community, the goal we were heading towards was completely outside of ourselves. In fact, because so many people thought our idea, while wonderful, was probably not attainable, it freed us from fear of failure. As failure was the expected outcome, any success was simply to be rejoiced,” Oriol said.
The Beckman Award has provided a rare opportunity to celebrate these remarkable mentoring relationships and their important contributions to society.
“It gave us a chance to share our story and the unique ways in which we supported one another,” said Oriol.
