Eboni Reed, OUWB Class of 2018, has been selected as a recipient of the 2018 Excellence in Public Health Award from the U.S. Public Health Service Physician Professional Advisory Committee. She was presented with the award at OUWB’s Honors Convocation ceremony.
Upon learning about the honor, Reed was flattered, as many of the recipients before her have done impactful work in their communities. “It’s difficult to explain the excitement of getting the award, because volunteering is something that you know in your heart that you want to do,” she said. “It’s a part of you that you’ll never stop doing.”
Reed was nominated by Robert Noiva, Ph.D., associate dean for preclinical education. “Reed recognizes healthcare inequities and has chosen to address disparities through her own service and leadership activities,” Noiva said.
As co-chair of the community service programming group of the Gold Humanism Honor Society at OUWB, she took on three significant projects: a program that involved collecting and distributing toiletries for two local homeless shelters, a monthly service event called Random Acts of Kindness in which students collaborate with Beaumont nurses to provide flowers and cards to patients, and a long-term project to develop a food pantry at Beaumont, Royal Oak.
During her M3 year, Reed became a volunteer at the Hope Warming Shelter in Pontiac. “It is rare for 3rdand 4thyear students to undertake the commitment of a longitudinal clinical service experience, because of the rigor of the third and fourth year clerkship curriculum,” Noiva said. “Reed reminded us that it was this longitudinal experience with shelter patients that helped her to better understand the needs of the underserved.”
Reed’s next steps
Reed first became heavily invested in volunteering during her undergraduate years at Wayne State University, where she was a member of a service fraternity. Upon entering medical school, she knew she wanted to continue. “It’s been a little more difficult, because you have such a strenuous schedule in med school,” she said. “But from M1 to M4 year, I’ve made sure to partake in any service event that I could do.”
Moving forward, Reed hopes to do as much work with the community as possible. In particular, she would like to partner with Veterans Affairs to help the disabled and those who have limited access to her specialized field, physical medicine and rehabilitation.
In March, Reed participated in Match Day, a national event that occurs annually when graduating medical students find out where they will be fulfilling their residency requirements. Reed matched at Memorial Healthcare System in Hollywood, Florida in physical medicine and rehabilitation. She believes that her commitment to community work contributed to her receiving an offer from this institution.
“The program does a lot of work in the community,” she says. “I think they were looking for that in their residents, as well.”
