We face two significant crises in this country at the moment that too little is being done to address. The third purpose of Walking with Jane, Inc. in its Articles of Organization attempts to address these issues in a small way.
The fact is we graduate far too few science majors in the US–and far too few of those we do graduate go into teaching. The majority of those who do go into teaching leave the profession within five years. Jane taught for 30 years. She was among the three brightest people I ever met. And she was among the three or four best teachers I ever met in any subject. If you talk to her students–as we did for the biographical piece on her for this site–they will tell you she was that rare individual who could make chemistry interesting for even the non-scientifically inclined. But beyond teaching chemistry, physics, AP biology–or any other of the subjects she took on over the course of her career–she taught the scientific method–a way of thinking about life, the universe and everything based on careful examination of the evidence and logical thinking.
It is that method of thinking that made America a world power and a force for good on this planet. It was the fundamental method of the Founding Fathers and the linchpin of every great piece of science and engineering in the last two centuries.
And it is a method of thinking that in recent years has been in shorter and shorter supply.
The second crisis is in medicine. While it appears we have plenty of doctors and nurses and technicians, this is not true. We face an ongoing shortage of nurses. And nurses may be the most critical people in the entire care-delivery chain. Jane’s nurses were superb. They were the ones directly responsible for her medical care more than anyone else.
While we may have enough specialists–and I do not think we do–we face an acute shortage of primary care/general practitioners. These doctors are the front line soldiers in the war against disease. They are the ones who spot the day-to-day abnormalities that are generally relatively easy to treat. They also have to be skilled enough and knowledgeable enough to recognize the out of the ordinary when they see it.
And good medical technicians are also in short supply. From watching the delicate dance among all three groups of people during Jane’s illness–and most especially her time in the hospital–I came to recognize the importance of all three groups to patient care.
Walking with Jane cannot fully address these shortages. But if a cure for NET and CS is to be found, it will come as the result of the kind, good science instruction Jane provided her students. It will come about because a student will enter the medical profession in some field with a scientist’s way of looking at the world and the problem of NET.
To encourage good teaching in science, good doctoring, good nursing and good work in the technical support areas, I created two Walking with Jane scholarships last year. The first is a four-year scholarship at $1,000 per year to be awarded to a Westport High School senior who intends to teach science or enter one of the medical professions. I also created a $1,000 scholarship at Bridgewater State University–Jane’s alma mater–with similar requirements.
Raising money to maintain and increase these scholarships, both in terms of the amount of the award and the number of scholarships given, is the third purpose of Walking with Jane, Inc.
