The Geiger Gibson Program Hosts Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice as Keynote Speaker
Newswise — WASHINGTON (March 22, 2012) — The 8th Annual Geiger Gibson Symposium, which celebrates the achievements of health centers and commemorates the groundbreaking work of Drs. H. Jack Geiger and Count Gibson, founders of the U.S. health centers movement and pioneers for health and human rights, will take place on March 24 at 10:30 am, at the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) Policy and Issues Forum in Washington, D.C. The meeting is the largest gathering of health center clinicians, executive directors, State and Regional Primary Care partners, board members and advocates on record.
The annual Geiger Gibson Symposium is dedicated to highlighting the role of health centers in advancing community health through service and advocacy. This year’s keynote speaker, Thomas E. Perez, J.D., M.P.P., Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Right Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, will deliver remarks focused on community health and civic engagement. “We welcome Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez as the keynote speaker at the symposium. His leadership has helped restore and transform the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice in the spirit of its traditional role as the “conscience of the nation.” Through his work, our government’s justice system will further fulfill the promise of our most important national laws – advancing equal opportunity, leveling the playing field, and protecting equal rights for all,” said Dr. H. Jack Geiger, co-founder of Physicians for Human Rights and Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Arthur C. Logan Professor Emeritus of Community Medicine, City University of New York Medical School.
At the Symposium, leaders from the Geiger Gibson Program will announce the winners of the Emerging Leader Award, an award that is designed to highlight and share the accomplishments of exceptional young members of health centers and primary care associations and honor the best young leaders of the health center movement.
About the Geiger Gibson Program in Community Health Policy at the GW School of Public Health and Health Services in the Department of Health Policy:
Established in 2004, the Geiger Gibson Program in Community Health Policy is named in honor of Drs. H. Jack Geiger and Count Gibson, pioneers in community health practice and tireless advocates for civil and human rights. Nearly 50 years ago, Geiger and Gibson founded the nation's first community health centers in Mound Bayou, Mississippi and Boston, Massachusetts; today, over 1200 health centers serve more than 20 million persons in more than 8000 urban and rural medically underserved communities across the nation. Through education and training and research and scholarship into community health centers and the patients and populations they serve, the Geiger Gibson Program shares the core mission of the community health centers program: to eliminate medical underservice and disparities in population health and health care and improve health and health care for all persons.
The Program was founded with generous gifts from the National Association of Community Health Centers and health centers and primary care associations around the nation. Today the program is supported through many sources: continuing gifts from health centers and state and regional primary care associations representing health centers throughout the nation, government research funding; grants from leading foundations such as the Henry J, Kaiser Family Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, and the United Health Foundation; and a major ongoing gift from the RCHN Community Health Foundation, which supports the work of the Geiger Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative.
About the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services:Established in July 1997, the School of Public Health and Health Services brought together three longstanding university programs in the schools of medicine, business, and education that we have since expanded substantially. Today, more than 1,100 students from nearly every U.S. state and more than 40 nations pursue undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral-level degrees in public health. Our student body is one of the most ethnically diverse among the nation's private schools of public health. http://sphhs.gwumc.edu/
About the Emerging Leader Award:The Geiger Gibson Program established its Emerging Leader award in 2007. This award is designed to highlight and share the accomplishments of young members of the health center and Primary Care Association family. The award recognizes young leaders within the community health centers family whose dedication and talents have furthered the role and mission of health centers in their communities.
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