NASA flight surgeon to address Upstate medical alumni during Reunion Weekend
SYRACUSE, N.Y. Joseph P. Dervay, M.D., M.P.H., (Upstate Class of 1984), flight surgeon at the NASA's Johnson Space Center, will discuss the health and safety challenges of Moon and other space exploration missions during Upstate Medical University's 134th Medical Alumni Reunion, to be held Oct. 2 and 3 on the Upstate campus. Dervay's lecture will be held Oct. 2, from noon to 1 p.m. in the Ninth Floor Auditorium in Weiskotten Hall.
Dervay's lecture is among many events marking the weekend, including the annual Weiskotten Lecture, to be presented by Melvyn Bert, M.D., (Upstate Class of 1967), Oct. 2, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in the Ninth Floor Auditorium in Weiskotten Hall. Awards and scholarship presentations will follow Bert's talk at 5 p.m., along with a writing seminar and tours of the university.
At NASA, Dervay has served as lead crew surgeon or deputy crew surgeon for eight Space Shuttle missions, two International Space Station missions, and he supported an additional 35 missions in the NASA Mission Control Center. His roles have included work in Russia during the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program, support during the John Glenn STS-95 flight and crew surgeon for STS-88, the first assembly flight of the International Space Station.
Bert will present the Weiskotten Lecture regarding the Tibet Vision Projectthe subject of the award-winning documentary "Visioning Tibet." The documentary will also be featured. Bert assisted in the earliest founding of the project whose membersAmerican ophthalmologistseach year make a pilgrimage to Tibet to train local doctors in cataract and lens implant surgery.
At the awards ceremony, Arnold M. Moses, M.D., Upstate Class of 1954, will receive the 2009 College of Medicine Distinguished Alumnus award. Moses is the distinguished service professor of medicine at Upstate, director of the Clinical Research Unit at the Institute for Human Performance and director of the Metabolic Bone Disease Center. For the past 10 years, he has served as the regional director of the New York state Osteoporosis Prevention and Education Program of the Department of Health.
Willie Underwood, III, M.D., M.P.H., Upstate Class of 1994, will receive the 2009 College of Medicine Outstanding Young Alumnus award. Underwood is an assistant member of the Department of Urology and the Office of Cancer Health Disparities Research, Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. He is a nationally known urologist, health services research and health policy expert. He is currently studying racial disparities in the treatment of prostate cancer.
Charles B. Marshall, M.D., Upstate Class of 1949, will receive the 2009 Humanitarian Award. For more than 25 years, Marshall, along with his wife, Doris, has committed his life to improving the human condition, performing medical and spiritual ministry work through the Christian Service Corps and through Youth With A Mission (Y-WAM) which led him to UNHCR camps in Thailand, Malaysia and Somalia in East Africa where he provided obstetrics and gynecologic medical services.
Reunion Weekend is sponsored by the Medical Alumni Foundation at Upstate Medical University and Upstate's College of Medicine.
For more information, call 464-4361.