Lynne Stevens Memorial Program

About Us

Lynne Stevens was the Director of the Responding to Violence Against Women Program, and an Assistant Professor at the Boston University School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine. Lynne was a clinical social worker who was a tireless advocate as well as clinician and researcher in the field of improving health care’s response to women experiencing violence. She specialized in evaluation of the quality of care offered in medical settings to women impacted by partner and sexual violence  and died in 2009 at the age of 63. Working with such groups as the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), she developed and implemented programs in many countries, including Nepal, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Armenia. Educational materials that she developed for program developers and staff have been widely distributed by UNFPA, the CDC, and state anti-violence programs, and been translated into a variety of languages.

On moving to Boston University in 2005, she championed the integration into medical settings of programs responsive to victims of violence. She led initiatives evaluating and strengthening services for victims of violence in a variety of settings, including the Family Medicine Department’s Ambulatory Care Clinic and other Department practices, Manet Community Health Center, and Boston University’s student health services, and dental clinics. Lynne maintained active and substantial community commitments, supporting programs offering free yoga for women with issues of poverty, homeless, domestic violence or  substance abuse histories. She also served as a member of the boards of directors of several domestic violence organizations in New York State and in Boston  where she became Vice-President of the Board of Casa Myrna Vasquez.

To keep Lynne’s voice and work alive for us, the Family Medicine Dept started a dedicated annual Grand Rounds, inviting a speaker to remind, instruct and inspire us to improve the care we provide to the women who were her life work.. Thanks to a generous donation in Lynne’s memory, our ambitions expanded to include providing the kind of lovely lunch that she always offered her friends and inviting some of the wider community of service providers and coalitions that Lynne participated in across the campus and city.

An additional exciting development was the establishment of a grant program for a research or practice improvement project. Funded in 2011 for to provide annual $5000 grants for 5 years or the life of the fund,  the focus is on evaluating, studying and improving care for women who experience partner and sexual violence receiving care in any of the hospitals, student health services and community health centers affiliated with Boston Medical Center or Boston University. This is a University-wide program, so that all faculty, staff, trainees and students of the University and affiliated services are eligible to apply if they receive endorsement by clinicians regarding clinical relevance.  Like Lynne, we want to make sure that what we do makes a difference.

Dr. Michael Grodin in the Boston Globe Magazine

Dr. Michael Grodin, who’s spent the past 33 years studying the Holocaust and other atrocities, stumbled on an unusual bit of history during a trip to Israel in the summer of 2009. The discovery was a museum exhibit featuring a literary magazine called Kamarad – produced by the boys confined by the Nazis in Building Q609 in a Jewish ghetto/camp in the former Czechoslovakia from 1943 to 1944. The magazine issues, created without adult supervision or censorship, were filled with stories about wilderness adventures, pranks, and soccer matches. The boys, ages 12 to 14, patched together the magazines from scraps of paper. All 22 editions, rendered in neat penmanship, have survived.
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Dr. Suki Tepperberg in the Boston Globe: Farmers’ market coupons used to push healthy eating

After declaring that his favorite new fruits and vegetables include peaches, apples, cucumbers, and zucchinis, 9-year-old Makael Constance of Dorchester hopped down from the podium and started munching on a pint of freshly picked raspberries. It is a habit Makael has gotten into since July, when his family enrolled in the Fruit and Veggie Prescription Program, a mostly privately funded pilot project that aims to increase access to fresh foods by providing farmers’ market coupons.
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Dr. Suki Tepperberg in the NY Times: Eat an Apple (Doctor’s Orders)



The farm stand is becoming the new apothecary, dispensing apples — not to mention artichokes, asparagus and arugula — to fill a novel kind of prescription.
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Dr. Suzanne Mitchell Featured on NPR: Crusty Patient Helps Shape Doctor’s Career

Two years ago Dr. Suzanne Mitchell's career seemed stalled. Her research wasn't going anywhere. And the hectic pace of her patient-care practice left her wondering every day, "What am I doing here?" To give herself time to take stock, she took a part-time job with an elder services agency in Gloucester, Mass., an old fishing port north of Boston. She saw her first patient at home. "The door opened and I saw this older gentleman with his dog beside him, defending him fiercely," she remembers. His name was Dick — and he most definitely didn't like doctors.
(Listen at NPR)
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Dr. Michael Grodin Received the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Diversity Council Justice Award

Michael Grodin, professor of health law, bioethics and human rights at BU School of Public Health, was recently awarded the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Diversity Council Justice Award in recognition of his "dedication to peace, justice, public health and human rights."  The Diversity Council is an advisory body of MDPH that advances diversity within the organization and promotes awareness of issues related to health equity.
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