Interns from original program

Steven Markowitz, MD

Now: Professor and Director, Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, Queens College , City University of New York

Then: 1979 Montefiore summer intern; later an OCAW intern

"I can tell you frankly that after the time I spent in the summer program at Montefiore that I knew this is what I wanted to do. It really grounded me in the substance of occupational health. According to the medical school curriculum, occupational health is a set of specific diseases that have certain clinical manifestations and certain epidemiological profiles. Through experience grounded in the workplace and gained by access to workers, you see how a host of other factors play a role in determining health. You see the culture of workers, the labor-management relations, the strains that people have in their workplace, and the incentives and disincentives to act or not to act to protect health.”

“Several of us who had been through these summer intern programs decided to pursue occupational health. It was unquestionably as a result of direct unfiltered exposure to workers, unions, and working conditions through these kinds of programs. It was irreplaceable."

Molly Coye, MD

Now: CEO and Founder, Health Technology Center
former state health officer for New Jersey and California ,

Then: 1975-77 OCAW Intern

1978-80 worked for OCAW as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholarships Fellow

“It clearly influenced me to spend the following ten years in occupational medicine. But more than that, it exposed me to a whole new set of realities and it gave me experience of being a leader, thinking outside of the box, creating new organizations, and responding to community health needs.”

Margaret Quinn, Sc.D., CIH

Now: Professor
Department of Work Environment, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Then: 1979 summer intern for OCAW

"[The internship] influenced me greatly. It gave me a perspective that I really couldn't have gotten elsewhere and something that I've brought with me to all of the work I have done, including the projects I'm working on right now. I see how hard it is in industrial hygiene training to really work with and understand health and safety from a worker's perspective. The further we get into our profession, a lot of the discourse happens manager-to-manager and often the workers are left out -- often, not intentionally, but as part of the class culture. I just think that getting that experience so early in my career set me on a different course."

Robert Harrison, MD

Now: Professor, Department of Medicine, UC San Francisco, and Occupational Health Branch of the California Department of Health Services, and OHIP's West Coast Coordinator

Then: 1976 Montefiore summer intern

“Every medical student should have some experience in either community health or worker health. I see talking to workers as sort of a subset of community health. It's important that they learn some basics such as taking an occupational history. I wouldn't expect most medical students to go into occupational medicine, but even if the vast majority didn't, they would at least know how to talk to their patients and understand their experiences at work.

I think that access to the workplace was absolutely key to the experience. I don't think it would be possible to link some theoretically classroom experience or even what you learn in a union hall unless you actually are in the plant. A picture is worth a thousand words.”