Compiled by Debra Scherban. Please send items to dscherban@gazettenet.com.
Michael P. Botticelli, a national leader in the response to the addiction crisis, will be the keynote speaker Thursday at a free event aimed at raising awareness of the opioid epidemic. Individuals involved in the local effort to address the crisis also will speak.
Called “Hope, Remembrance and Recovery: Healing from the Opioid Crisis” the public event will run from 5 to 8 p.m. at Union Station in Northampton. It is sponsored by Hampshire HOPE, the region’s opioid prevention coalition run out of the Northampton Health Department, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, the Northwestern District Attorney’s office and Florence Bank.
Light refreshments will be served prior to the formal program that begins at 6 p.m.
“We want to engage new community members in our efforts to prevent opioid addiction, save lives and heal our community,” said J. Cherry Sullivan, coordinator for Hampshire HOPE. “It’s also a way to celebrate and share with the community the amazing work we’ve done over the last two years.”
Another element of the evening will be the creation of a “wall of remembrance and hope,” a space for people to post pictures and text that remember loved ones lost to addiction and images and words of inspiration for people in recovery. Anyone is invited to contribute beginning at 5 p.m.
Botticelli served as director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy from 2014 until President Barack Obama left office in January. He now serves as executive director of the Grayken Center for Addiction Medicine at Boston Medical Center. Previously, he worked for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, including several years as director of the state’s substance abuse services. Botticelli, who speaks openly about this own experience as a recovering alcoholic, has advocated for police to carry naloxone to reverse opioid overdoses and for the expansion of substance abuse treatment.
Dr. Jaya Agrawal, a physician with Hampshire Gastroenterology in Florence, has been honored by her peers of the Hampshire District Medical Society as the 2017 Community Clinician of the Year.
In nominating her for the award, her colleagues noted her kindness, compassion and abilities as a communicator along with her skills and expertise in providing medical care to her patients.
Agrawal is chief of endoscopy at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton and a founding member and president-elect of the Massachusetts Gastroenterology Association.
A published author and lecturer on many health topics including colon cancer, liver disease and women’s health, Agrawal received her bachelor’s degree in religious studies from Brown University in Providence, her master’s in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and her M.D. from Brown Medical School in Providence. She completed her residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in gastroenterology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston.
The Massachusetts Medical Society, with some 25,000 physicians and student members, is dedicated to educating and advocating for the patients and physicians of Massachusetts. The Society, under the auspices of NEJM Group, publishes the New England Journal of Medicine, a leading global medical journal and web site, and Journal Watch alerts and newsletters covering 13 specialties.
Thursday, 12 to 5 p.m., Cooley Dickinson Hospital, 30 Locust St., Northampton
Friday, 12 to 5 p.m., Rockridge Retirement Community, 25 & 27 Coles Meadow Road, Northampton