December 2006
Even on a campus where students are known for their talent and ability, David Fajgenbaum stands out from the crowd. Being a 6’3” football quarterback helps, but his accomplishments off the field are even more impressive. Fajgenbaum, a senior in the School of Nursing & Health Studies and one of five Georgetown finalists for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship competition this year, maintains a 3.84 GPA while leading Students of AMF (Ailing Mothers and Fathers), the organization he founded after his mother died of brain cancer in 2004.
The acronym “AMF” in the name of Fajgenbaum’s organization has a dual meaning: the letters are Anne Marie Fajgenbaum’s initials. Near the end of his mother’s life, David says, he promised her that he would do something to make sure that other Georgetown students who were grieving for a dying parent had resources to help them cope. Just months after she lost her battle with cancer, the on-campus support system was born and named in her honor. Students of AMF provides a network of early intervention and peer counseling to students who may otherwise feel isolated by grief and loss.
“We wanted to create a support group as a place for us to be able to share the difficult experiences we had all been through, but we also wanted to be proactive and incorporate an advocacy piece into the group,” said Fajgenbaum. “That way, other students, who fortunately hadn’t lost a loved one but wanted to fight back against cancer and other diseases, could get involved in our service projects.”
In addition to his work with Students of AMF, Fajgenbaum is also dedicated to a career in cancer treatment and prevention and will attend medical school after graduation. He said his ongoing work to create, grow and sustain Students of AMF as a public health intervention for his peers has complemented his coursework in health policy and health promotion as a Human Science major. “My NHS classes have taught me that being a college student who has lost a close relative puts you at risk for several mental health problems—it’s not just the kind of thing that makes you sad for a few days,” he said.
For his senior honors thesis, Fajgenbaum is examining the effectiveness of Students of AMF as a health intervention that could potentially reduce the risk of problems, such as depression and poor school performance, which often affect young people who have lost a parent. He will build his senior thesis upon work he began last summer as a Raines Scholar at Georgetown, when he found that very little early intervention exists for students struggling to cope with grief, no matter where they go to college. He hopes to create a “toolkit” of recommendations and options for universities interested in addressing the problem of student bereavement.
Even before he began formally researching the topic, Fajgenbaum says he had a hunch about the pervasiveness of the problem of grief on campus based on the overwhelming interest he received from students around the world who had heard about Students of AMF at Georgetown. He worked with a childhood friend at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill to incorporate the National Students of AMF Support Network as a non-profit organization last spring, and 19 campus chapters are in development across the country and in the .
“Dave has worked passionately from day one to make Students of AMF a well-respected organization—first within the Georgetown community and now nationally,” said Kate Fredrikson (NHS ’07), who, with Fajgenbaum, co-founded the Georgetown chapter. “No matter what else he has going on in his life, Dave manages to make Students of AMF and its members a priority.”
On campus, the Georgetown chapter sponsors up to 20 service projects annually, provides outreach to teens who have lost loved ones, and coordinates fundraising and lobbying efforts to help find a cure for cancer. Interested faculty and staff are also paired up with students who need the most support, giving them another on-campus resource to turn to when times are tough.
NHS Dean Bette Keltner has been involved in the Georgetown chapter of AMF since its inception and now serves on the Board of Directors for the national organization. “We expect all of our students to grow while they are here, but David’s path has been unique,” says Keltner. “He has used his talents as a scientist to pursue both advanced studies and to create a national organization, all while using adversity for good early on in his college career. David is a leader in the making.”
Across campus, English Professor and University Fellowship Secretary John Glavin helped Fajgenbaum make his personal passion to fight cancer a reality by teaching him how to find evidence to force sustainable change.
Glavin says Fajgenbaum’s leadership is especially powerful because the “range of what he does is so extreme.” In his endorsement essay for Fajgenbaum’s Rhodes scholarship application, Glavin wrote, “Whatever it is, however demanding it is, even when the burden isn’t his, he’s someone who lifts it away from others whose gifts and strength and commitment do not match his own.”
Maintaining his day to day involvement in Students of AMF during medical school next year will certainly be demanding, but Fajgenbaum’s passion for the cause ensures the organization’s continued growth. “I never expected AMF to become what it has,” said Fajgenbaum. “But we’ve grown because the need is clearly there. Hearing that we’ve really made a difference in the lives of students dealing with grief just brings everything full circle for me.”
Visit Students of AMF at http://www.studentsofamf.org.
By Becky Wexler and Julie Bataille
<http://gumc.georgetown.edu/>
