VA New England Healthcare System
VA New England researcher receives BU volunteer award for humanitarian health project
Louis Fiore, M.D., M.P.H.
Lou Fiore, M.D., M.P.H. earned Boston University’s 2015 Office of Academic Affairs’ Voluntary Faculty Award of Excellence for volunteer public health projects in Nicaragua.
Fiore is Executive Director of the Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center (MAVERIC) and the VISN 1 Precision Oncology Program Director.
He is also a Professor of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, as well as Professor of Public Health, Boston University School of Public Health.
Fiore has served as a mentor to many students, as well as residents, at the VA Boston Health Care System.
Beyond his responsibilities as a mentor and doctor at VA Boston, Fiore has developed and funded research missions to Nicaragua for the past seven years. Working through his non-profit “Lowering Poverty and Disease in Southern Nicaragua” he has sponsored students from BU’s Schools of Public Health and Medicine. These medical mission trips have addressed issues of parasite control through water purification and epidemiological work on chronic kidney disease.
The overarching goal of the project is to introduce students to pragmatic work in a developing country and while contributing meaningfully to efforts to alleviate disease and poverty.
Expressing his gratitude for the students that helped him in Nicaragua Fiore said, “I am pleased and humbled to receive the Boston University’s 2015 Office of Academic Affairs’ Voluntary Faculty Award of Excellence. My nomination was no doubt due in large part to the work that I have done in Nicaragua with medical, nursing, public health and undergraduate students over the past decade. My part was easy – creating opportunities for students to explore the culture and people of an undeveloped country in the context of medical missions designed to investigate the epidemiology of parasitic infections and chronic kidney disease. The true burden was borne by the volunteers who dedicated themselves fully to summer months of challenging field work in harsh environmental conditions. While the work that we accomplished together has already gone far to aid in our understanding of what needs to be done to alleviate some of the suffering in southern Nicaragua, I feel that the greatest accomplishment of the projects is to inspire students to focus on what they can do for the underserved over their careers. Ultimately, it is always the welcoming and loving disposition of the Nicaraguan people that makes the experience beautiful and impossible to simply leave behind.” For more information on the work that we continue to do please visit http://www.lpd.com.
Boston University faculty will present the award to Fiore May 20th at the Boston University School of Medicine.
