Photo Friday: A doctor, an Epidemiologist, Planners, and a Mayor walk into a Building Museum….

Left to right: Amy Levner (AARP), Scott Ball (CommonsPlanning), Patrick Kraich (National Building Museum), Ted Eytan (me), Irene Yen, PhD MPH (UCSF), Terry Bellamy (Mayor, City of Asheville, NC)
View Livable Communities Tour 30194 on Flickr.com

As the title of the post says, the movement toward livable communities and a healthier society is underway, with collaborations that couldn’t be imagined previously. I had the honor of supporting the esteemed group in the photograph above at the National Building Museum (@BuildingMuseum) program on Livable Communities: Healthy Neighborhoods.

The video will be posted by the National Building Museum. When you see it, you’ll note that we actually forged community collaboration in the audience during the event itself, which was kind of amazing.

The photograph above was taken during the prerequisite tour of the Center for Total Health (@kptotalhealth) that I like to offer to anyone passionate about improving health. We may look a little tentative because there’s a raging thunderstorm happening outside and we’re pondering our safe transportation options (shared challenge brings people together…

All of that aside I have to say that once more, I am so impressed at how many leaders in society are willing to come together to support health, with the health system and not to the exclusion of it. There are things that Mayor Terry Bellamy (@Terry_Bellamy) told us about her work and her passion for her community that would impress any physician or health professional committed to improving health. And yet, she’s not out to impress the health profession, she’s working to impress her community through the creation of a usable, equitable, sustainable infrastructure for happiness. Did I get that right? That’s my version – if Terry* were writing this post I think she would say, “Come to Asheville, North Carolina, I’ll show you.”

Same goes for Scott, Irene, and Amy – we are aligned in moving our disciplines to be about people, and the sentiment is “come join us.” And when we say “us” – a takeway is “all of us, all ages and backgrounds” – we have more in common around the need for livability than we have differences.

Thanks to AARP (@AARP) for their sponsorship of the program.

*As I tell so many people in my world to not call me “Dr.,” to support collaboration I feel like I need to take a dose of my own medicine – okay, I admit it’s not easy! 🙂

2 Comments

Ted Eytan, MD