Former first lady Rosalynn Carter to receive UCSF medal on May 22

By Eve Harris

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter will receive the UCSF Medal - the University’s highest honor - at a special event May 22 in recognition of her work on mental health issues and advocacy on behalf of people with mental illness.
Equivalent to an honorary doctorate given by many universities, the UCSF Medal is given annually to individuals who have made outstanding personal contributions to the health sciences and whose efforts mirror the goals and values of the university.
Carter brought mental illness to the forefront of the national agenda over 30 years ago, and she has continued as a visible and active leader in the field.  As First Lady of Georgia and the United States, she has pushed for reform on several mental health issues, including reducing the stigma, parity for treatment options and payment by insurance providers, greater research on the brain, better access to improved mental health services, and early intervention for children.
Today she continues her work through mental health initiatives at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Ga., the Rosalynn Carter Institute, the Rosalynn Carter Symposia on Mental Health Policy, and an endowed chair in her name at Emory University.  She serves on numerous boards and commissions related to mental health, and her honors include the U.S. Surgeon General’s Medallion.
Carter will receive the medal from UCSF Chancellor J. Michael Bishop at a luncheon on Thursday, May 22. The event is scheduled for 11:30 am at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, and Carter will make her remarks at about 12:50 pm
The event is hosted by the Friends of Langley Porter, a not-for-profit organization that provides grants to the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute for research, patient care, and educational programs.
Carter is one of five persons to receive the UCSF Medal this year. The other recipients, who were honored last month, are:
• T. Robert Burke, a real estate leader who assisted in planning and developing the UCSF Mission Bay campus. As co-founder and director of AMB Property Corp., a real estate investment firm, Burke served on the Board of the Bay Area Life Sciences Alliance, which assisted UCSF officials in planning and developing the teaching and research campus at Mission Bay.
• Richard N. Goldman, an American philanthropist and Bay Area civic leader. Goldman has consistently demonstrated an outstanding commitment as a world citizen by supporting international, national and local organizations, including medical education, research, patient care and health projects at UCSF.
• Nancy Hopkins, PhD, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and champion of gender equity in academia.  Amgen Professor of Molecular Biology at MIT and a member of the Institute of Medicine, she is noted for her work uncovering gender inequities among faculty at MIT and speaking out about the issue at universities across the U.S.
• Charles B. Wilson, MD, DSc, MSHA, a renowned neurosurgeon and professor emeritus who served more than 30 years as a leader at UCSF.  A senior member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, he has been a member of the UCSF faculty since 1968, serving as chair of neurosurgery and founding director of the UCSF Brain Tumor Research Center.
Proceeds from the luncheon will benefit the Children’s Center at Langley Porter, a unique regional resource dedicated to the early diagnosis and treatment of a child’s emotional, psychiatric and medical needs. 

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NOTE TO MEDIA:  Contact Eve Harris in the UCSF News Office at 415-885-7277 if you would like to cover the event or arrange interviews.  Availability includes Craig Van Dyke, MD, director of Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute; and Glen Elliott, MD, PhD, director of the Children’s Center at LPPI.