Project Access Physician Champions
Suzanne Landis, MD, Asheville, NC
Suzanne Landis, MD, MPH lives in Asheville, NC and practices medicine at the MAHEC Family Health Center. She was part of the team that created Buncombe County Medical Society Project Access in 1995 and has been involved in the leadership of Project Access since its inception. Dr. Landis received the North Carolina Medical Society's 2002 E. Harvey Estes, MD, Physician Community Service Award and recently submitted the following guest editorial to her local newspaper.
View the PDF here 
Dr. Samuel Selinger, Spokane, WA
The Spokane County Medical Society named Dr. Samuel L. Selinger, a semi-retired Cardiothoracic Surgeon, as the Spokane Physician/Citizen of the Year for 2002, on April 22, 2003. A plaque was presented to Dr. Selinger by Dr. Robert Hartman, President of the Spokane County Medical Society, for his outstanding contributions to the medical profession and the community. Dr. Selinger was honored mainly because of his tireless advocacy of Project Access. Project Access will not only provide much needed access to health care for the indigent in Spokane but will also be good for the local business community.
To quote the physician who nominated him I can not think of anything or anyone in the last 25 years that has improved our professions image within our community as this. He has very competently done the requisite research to determine the credibility and adaptability of the program to Spokane. He demonstrates the ideal in our professional ethics and behavior as he promotes the individual and common good, and service to others ahead of his own gain. In addition to his work on Project Access, Dr. Selinger has been volunteering his medical skills at various charity clinics around Spokane.
The Medical Society is very proud to award this honor to Dr. Samuel L. Selinger.
View the entire award letter PDF here 
Dr. Tom LeGalley, Marquette, MI
Dr. Tom LeGalley of Marquette, MI accepted the prestigious National Civic League All-American City Award on behalf of the Medical Care Access Coalition (MCAC) and Marquette county. For half a century the All-America City Award has recognized exemplary civic accomplishments in communities of all shapes and sizes. The AAC award celebrates the spirit of grassroots citizen involvement, creative community effort, and collaborative problem solving. This achievement celebrates the success that can be achieved when people in communities join together and cooperatively work to tackle challenges.
Marquette, MI has done a wonderful job of meeting the challenge of access to healthcare and made it an opportunity to make sure that all citizens of Marquette County had access to quality, affordable health care with dignity.
"It is truly because of the volunteer spirit demonstrated so well with MCAC that miracles can happen. This is a beginning- we must now turn the page and live the promise, said Dr. LeGalley."
Project Access Dallas: Mobilizing physician volunteerism - working with the uninsured!
From time to time the practice of medicine provides us with a deeper look into the human person. Beyond the anatomy and physiology, practicing physicians learn that our patients and their family members are presenting with an increasing degree of social and medical complexity. In the profession of medicine we are famous for using anecdotal stories of our patients to illustrate a medical or social opinion that we have formulated. The story below was written in an attempt to illustrate an all too often "hidden value" that the medical profession brings to light in our increasingly complex health care environment:
Lorenzo's Mom
I am not, nor will I ever have the chance to be a mother. While I have been blessed with the opportunity to be a father of four wonderful sons and one "adopted" daughter, I have stood on the sidelines and watched the mother of my sons teach me the little that I understand about the mysterious nature of "mothering". In my career, I have also had opportunity to observe some fairly incredible women reach new heights in mothering. One such story is a recent patient's mom, Clara. While I will protect her identity by changing her name, I really want you to know her. She is Lorenzo's mom, Clara.
Part of knowing Clara, is in understanding where she comes from. Imagine if you can Clara's life before her arrival in the United States. She and her husband raised their five children on a ranch in central Mexico over three hours from the nearest city. Typical of the ranch foreman's lifestyle, Clara and her husband shared the responsibilities of managing the "outdoor" affairs of the ranch, workers and livestock. With limited access to the outside world, the life of their family took on a familiar rhythm of seasonal changes and the cyclical demands of a large ranching operation. Beautiful scenes of sunrises and sunsets in the uncluttered rolling hills were constant companions and "art gallery". With the help of the children, the family was quite stable and secure, even if the opportunity for wealth creation remained only a curiosity they noted during the limited opportunities they watched television. Indeed, Clara's world was one we remember hearing about from the older generation lucky enough to grow up in and around the southwestern culture.
Like most mothers, Clara could not guess or control the influences of modern culture and its tempting allure on her children, especially her oldest son, Lorenzo. In spite of his geographic isolation and limited formal education, Lorenzo found himself fearlessly attracted to the opportunities he heard rumored to await him in the affluent lands just a few days drive north. Imagine if you can the mother's terror during their tearful goodbye as Clara watched her dear son drive away, as if he were being launched on a long space flight to explore a foreign planet.
The phone call that changed Clara's life arrived over five month ago. The woman on the other end of the line explained that she and her husband were friends of their son living in the world-famous city named "Dallas". The message collided with her with a devastating force much like the automobile that had struck Lorenzo while he changed the flat tire on the side of a highway. She was told that she should see if she could make immediate arrangements with the Mexican consulate to travel to Dallas, because Lorenzo had been critically injured in an accident and may not survive.
For four months Clara did her best to understand the devastating trauma that had reduced her son to a "vegetative state", and a hospital culture that moved at seemingly light-speed compared to the ranch. She did her best to slow the thoughts and message down to a manageable pace, but her best efforts were simply inadequate to help make sense out of the present circumstances and the projected future being prescribed by Lorenzo's brain damage.
During the fifth month, she began to regain her footing as she tapped into the deep well of her mothering instincts. Not only did she master the detailed skills of feeding her son through the tube in his stomach, she managed to learn the nuanced techniques to care for the large bed sore on his back. Not in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that her adult life would have turned so sharply to now revolve around monitoring the fluids going into and out of Lorenzo's body. As I met with her during those first few days, I learned that one of her core concerns was wondering if the challenges she faced were fully respected by the caregivers of the trauma hospital. She expressed her deep appreciation for the technical skills that were used to spare her oldest son's life, as she connected them in her mind to the new tools that had come to the ranch over the last few years. These analogies would serve us well as we worked to assist her in accepting the new role that she was entering.
On the sixth month anniversary of his accident, Lorenzo was discharged from the hospital and into the trusted care of Clara. What a bitter-sweet day it was, as I helped lift Lorenzo's motionless body onto his newly donated hospital bed and mattress. Reviewing his medication list and liquid nutrition requirements, I realized that this mother was not only up to the task, but she had tapped some unknown fountain of strength, possibly just reserved for mothers, and became his protector and advocate.
As I turned to leave, out of the corner of my eye I witnessed the dignity that I so admired as she smoothed out the sheet on his bed and pulled his blanket up around his neck, gentling stroking his cheek. I knew he was in the right hands.
The Texas Medical Association, local medical societies and individual physicians are supporting local innovation in helping to provide care for some of our most vulnerable residents. For more information: www. ProjectAccess.info.
Who are the physicians in your community that might 'champion' the establishment of a Project Access system or who are already leading an operational Project Access system? Tell us their stories and we will feature them here