Newly appointed Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, Dr. Bechara Choucair will be the next featured speaker in the Schweitzer Fellows for Life “Leadership by Example” lecture series. Now in its third year, the series invites exemplary individuals to talk about their lives of public service, with a special focus on leaders who promote the well being and empowerment of vulnerable and marginalized populations.
As commissioner, Dr. Choucair leads the charge in fulfilling the department’s mission to make Chicago a safer and healthier city by working with community partners to promote health, prevent disease, reduce environmental hazards and ensure access to health care.
Before being appointed Health Commissioner, Dr. Choucair served as Executive Director and Medical Director ofHeartland International Health Center, a federally qualified health center on Chicago’s north side that provides services for the underserved in Rogers Park, Edgewater, Uptown, Albany Park, and Lincoln Square. Dr. Choucair also provided clinical leadership to the Health Care for Homeless program, as well as the HIV program at Heartland Alliance. He is also a member of the faculty at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, where he serves as Vice Chair for Community Medicine and oversees the Poverty Medicine Collaborative between Heartland Alliance and the Northwestern Medical School.
Previous speakers in the series have included: Carmen Velasquez, founder of the Alivio Medical Center; Meade Palidofsky, founder and artistic director of Storycatchers Theater, an arts organization that works with girls in detention; Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan; Dr. Karen Sheehan, a child injury prevention expert and director of Chicago Youth Programs; and Dr. Greg Scott, a sociology professor and documentary filmmaker who has done extensive work with drug users and other “underground” populations in Chicago.
The event is open to the public and will be held Thursday, June 10, 2010 beginning at 6:00pm at Northwestern University’s Chicago medical campus in Hughes Auditorium, 303 E. Superior Street, 1st Floor, Chicago. It is free of charge, and open to the public, but reservations are strongly recommended. RSVP to: rsvp@hmprg.org or call 312 372-4292 Ext. 24
