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| Thanks to hard work by Tulane University medical students, children can enjoy the playground at McDonogh City Park Academy. First, (top photo) Gopi Shah, left, and another medical student prepare the site. The finished product (bottom photo) is ready for play. (Photos by Aaron Fritts) |
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Now that the Tulane University School of Medicine has resumed in downtown New Orleans, small teams of medical students have been identifying the needs of post-Katrina New Orleans and seeking money to meet them.
From raising $13,000 from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation for a new school playground to attracting funding from the American Psychiatric Foundation for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) screenings and education, the students are actively healing the community outside of the classroom.
Thanks to the students' work, children are enjoying the new playground equipment outside McDonogh City Park Academy. In addition, members of the New Orleans community will be able to take advantage of depression screenings and other health events around town starting Saturday (Oct. 21) as part of the Helping Hands grants.
Playground Fitness
Members of the Project Play-Fit Post-Katrina fundraising and playground building team include fourth-year medical students Gopi Shah, Aaron Fritts, Susan Brim and Jasmeen Dara.
"As students at Tulane and residents in this city, we felt a great responsibility to contribute to the rebuilding of New Orleans," says Shah. "We decided to design a project to build a playground at a local school."
The New Orleans Parish school system recommended McDonogh City Park Academy to receive the playground. Over the course of a weekend in September, the students and 20 volunteers added a fitness course called "Hercules III" as well as a slide, a geodome, two new basketball backboards, goals and green mulch for the playground pit.
"The plot of land that we worked with was about 55-by-35 feet, and the majority of the school's play space was concrete with a few basketball posts that had rotted backboards without nets and rims," says Shah.
Health Screenings
If play alone can't cure the blues, people can get free depression and PTSD screenings from second-year medical students Rachel Waxman, Andrew Coyle, Ben Rieff and Joseph Kanter. Under the guidance of psychiatrist Jan Johnson, the team sought and received $3,500 in funding to provide the screenings and community outreach.
According to Coyle, he and his colleagues began to think about how best to help New Orleans while the medical students were studying in Houston after Hurricane Katrina. They quickly saw that there would be a need for mental health services.
"We hope that, through the Helping Hands grant, we can link patients, particularly those who represent the most underserved populations such as musicians, undocumented workers and the working poor, to mental health services in New Orleans," says Coyle.
The first screenings will occur on Saturday (Oct. 21) in two locations. The first is part of a women's health workshop at the Jefferson Parish East Bank Regional Library, 4747 West Napoleon Ave., from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Johnson will discuss stress and women's health, while obstetrician Roberta Lottinger will discuss women's physical health.
Depression screenings will be available in addition to bone density and blood pressure screenings. For information or reservations, call 504-988-5800. Screenings will take place the same day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at a Hispanic Health Fair at the Hispanic Business Resource and Technology Center, 3315 Main Ave (Annex Building, Roosevelt Middle School) in Kenner.
According to Coyle, future screenings will be held at St. Anna's Mobile Health Unit, St. Anna's Musician's Clinic at St. Anna's Episcopal Church and Fleur de Vie Tulane Student Clinic at Tulane Community Health Center at Covenant House. For information call 504-988-5406.
