SER President Uses Strategic Vision To Frame His Address At 50th
Anniversary Meeting
Pays Tribute To
Past Presidents With Pictures, And A Shout Out In Song
THINK.TEACH.DO. FOR THE HEALTH OF ALL
Those are the elements of a vision developed as part of a strategic
planning process at Boston University’s (BU) School of Public Health.
It also served as the framework borrowed by one of its faculty
members, Bernard Harlow, outgoing President of the Society
for Epidemiologic Research (SER), for his Presidential Address at the
50th anniversary meeting of the SER in Seattle this month.
Ending with a flourish, Harlow played a song to the
melody of “Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover” with amusingly doctored
lyrics to honor the 50 past presidents of the SER all the way from
Abraham Lilienfeld in the early days to Diane Lauderdale in
more recent times. The song was accompanied with pictures of the past
presidents dug up from the SER archives. The audience was elated and
offered a standing ovation.
On Thinking
In using the framework Think. Teach. Do to underline
the importance of thinking in epidemiology, Harlow urged his audience
to think about their strengths, how they can improve upon their
professional development, how they can contribute to epidemiology both
inside and outside of SER, and finally how they can engage with the
community to bring about more impact in public health. It was a
presentation well aligned with a consequentialist vision of
epidemiology.
On Teaching
On the teaching element of the framework, Harlow
focused on encouraging colleagues to convey the value of epidemiology
to scientists in other disciplines, to other epidemiologists through
the means afforded by SER, and to serve early stage investigators by
being outstanding mentors.
In highlighting the importance of doing, Harlow
described some of the SER accomplishments in the past year and urged
attendees to ask themselves what they can do to further the work of
SER.
50 Years We’ve Loved
Our Epi
The session closed in
an upbeat
celebratory manner with the refrain from Harlow’s new
song—“50 Years We’ve Loved Our Epi”. He managed to cycle through more
than 30 pictures of former SER presidents while playing his song and
giving a shout out to each president. He concluded with a series of
tableaux with the pictures of all 50 past SER presidents.
Readers will be able to access the song played by
Harlow to the melody of “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” on the SER
website in the near future. He kindly provided the lyrics for The Epi
Monitor shown below:
When I was young
My mentor Noel explained to me
The gift of data,
But confounding no one sees
We’ve come so far
In how we judge causality
We’ve all had,
50 years to love our Epi,
50 years to love our Epi
Our students ask us
how we’ve
Changed over the years
We say we’re more
than
Food-borne outbreaks at the Fair
We’ve spanned the
globe
In leading studies far and near
We’ve all had,
50 years to love our Epi,
50 years to love our Epi
We’ve gotta thank Abe, babe
And the great John Snow, y’know
How about Art to start
There’s more than we know
Let’s thank the two Al’s, pals
And that devlish old Lew, too
We gotta bring on Leon, dude
Just listen to me
Let’s call out the Sax, Max
Don’t forget about Milt, Wilt
We’re thinkin about Liz, Tiz
That’s only a few
Let’s not forget Ken, then
And the great Pat Buffler
Don’t forget about Kap, Chap
There’s many more
too
We’ve watched our students
Grow to be our legacy
They’ll keep us
growing
With new methodology
They’ll face new
challenges
With Trump’s health strategy
They’ll bring a
new,
50 years to love our Epi,
50 years to love our Epi
So as we celebrate
Our decade number five
Let’s not forget
the ones
That helped us to survive
We’ve named a few
today
But there are many more of we,
Who made up
50 years to love
our Epi,
50 years to love our Epi
Let’s firmly thank Sherm, man
And our own Sandro, bro
Don’t forget about Mike, Ike
And Mary Haan too
We gotta shout out Julie, Hoolie
And our own Louise, please
Don’t forget about Szklo, y’know
Gotta thank a few more
Let’s thank our own Carol, Hogue
And Polly the poet, y’know it
Let’s rave about the Daves
And Malcolm Maclure
Bring up the slim, Tim
And the great Germaine, dame
Don’t forget about Les, Tess
And the Di’s on each end
We’ve named a few
today
But there are many more of we,
Who made up
50 years to love
our Epi,
50 years to love our Epi
Asked about the SER
meeting overall, Harlow told the Monitor, “The meeting was largest in
SER history and featured cutting edge methods, historical reflections,
and many special sessions that reflected on the contributions
epidemiologists have made over the past 50 years. It was truly a
special meeting for all.” ■
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