After graduating from medical school, he returned to Detroit. “Where a lot of people saw Detroit as a desolate place, I saw opportunity. I saw fertile ground,” Dr. Jones said.
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October 2018He now inspires students at the very same high school he once attended. While guest lecturing a physics class, for instance, Dr. Jones interweaves his work with facial trauma reconstruction to deliver a powerful lesson about the physics of car accidents. His presence is also a testimony to the importance of the very class he’s teaching. “The students see someone who sat in the same classroom and learned some of the same things, and they see not only how I was able to apply that learning to get to where I am, but also how I use those concepts every day,” Dr. Jones said.
Dr. Jones also serves as an informal mentor for many of his pediatric patients. “I frequently ask the kids what their plans are for the future and I talk to them and their parents about their grades,” said Dr. Jones, noting that he’s been invited to numerous graduation parties, and tries to attend as many as possible. “As a physician, you have a bigger stage and more opportunity to make a difference in your community,” Dr. Jones said. “I’m blessed to help others and to get compensated well for what I do. With that comes some responsibility to give back.”
After saying to myself, over and over, ‘somebody needs to do something about this,’ I finally thought, maybe it should be me. —Charles Moore, MD
The Public Servant: Dr. Charles Moore
When Dr. Moore accepted a position in the department of otolaryngology at Grady Memorial Hospital, a 1200-bed Level One trauma center that provides care for many of Atlanta’s indigent patients, he did so with an eye toward improving the health of a traditionally underserved population.
His initial community outreach efforts were small: one man, providing service to one person at a time, in some of Atlanta’s most under-resourced neighborhoods. “Gradually, I realized it would take more than one person to make a big impact,” Dr. Moore said, so he began inviting colleagues to join him. In time, and with great effort and collaboration, his outreach led to the development of the HEALing Community Center, a network of four federally qualified healthcare centers, including two school-based health centers.
Dr. Moore also serves as director of the Urban Health Initiative at Emory University, an initiative that is designed to address health disparities. “One of the places that we have worked is at an apartment complex where there’s about 90% unemployment and no access to transportation,” Dr. Moore said. Students in Emory’s Master of Public Health Program worked with residents and local churches to help tenants access local businesses. “We got two churches involved. One donated the use of their van; the other paid for gas and a driver. We came up with a route that would go to grocery stores, the laundromat and doctors’ offices, and some students also created an app so you could see where the van was in route,” Dr. Moore said.