Physicians Named 2009 H. Richard Nesson Fellows

Cheryl Clark LeRoi Hicks

Hospitalists Cheryl Clark, MD, SD, and LeRoi Hicks, MD, MPH, are this year’s 2009 H. Richard Nesson Fellowship recipients.

“Both Dr. Clark and Dr. Hicks exemplify the extraordinary dedication to community health for which Dr. Nesson was so respected and admired,” said Wanda McClain, executive director for the Center for Community Health and Health Equity.

As part of the program, each fellow teams with a senior BWH administrator, physician, or care giver who will provide mentoring while the fellow researches an area of interest. Upon completion of the two-year program, fellows present on the purpose, scope and results of their work.

For Hicks, the fellowship is an opportunity to continue his advocacy for community health as well as research. Since coming to BWH in 1999, Hicks’ research has looked at the racial and ethnic disparities in the treatment and clinical outcomes of chronic diseases; the development and assessment of interventions aimed at improving quality of medical care and the reduction of racial and ethnic disparities in care. Hicks’ fellowship will combine work in promoting quality of care for chronic disease management among underserved populations in Boston neighborhoods with research focused on testing interventions to improve chronic disease outcomes and to mitigate disparities in care.

For Clark, the fellowship presents an opportunity to use her expertise in social epidemiology and general internal medicine to build infrastructure at BWH in community-based participatory research interventions, an emerging approach that values the voices of local communities in crafting research questions, designing research methods and designing action steps for intervention. “Eliminating health disparities will require approaches that rely on the expertise of communities to devise solutions,” she said.