At Dartmouth’s Social Justice Awards program last week, John Turco, MD, a professor of endocrinology, received a Lifetime Achievement Award. He was medical director of the Dartmouth College Health Service for more than 30 years and is the director of the Transgender Health Program at Dartmouth Health. Turco, who joined Geisel’s faculty in 1979, was involved in developing curriculum to train the next generation of physicians in the care of transgender and gender-diverse patients.
An Emerging Leadership Award went to Josie Pinto, who is currently earning her Master of Public Health at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Founder of the Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire, a statewide organization that supports those seeking abortion services. Since launching the fund in February 2021, it has helped more than 400 New Hampshire residents access abortion and funded patients from 24 states where abortion access has been restricted since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Also recognized was Dartmouth Health’s Alisa Hurwitz, who received Ongoing Commitment Award for her work in providing psychotherapeutic care related to pediatric and adolescent endocrinology in DH’s Transgender Health Program. Hurwitz, an American Psychological Association-accredited PhD in psychology, works in the field of family therapy and trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, with a focus on individuals on the autism spectrum, trauma, and family therapy. Because of the high incidence of gender diversity among people with autism, she says she began to see many transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse patients and recognizes the need for therapists able to work with trans populations.
Read more about all this year’s Dartmouth Social Justice Awardees…
