●Many have taken notice of Deborah Temkin’s anti-bullying campaign for the Education Department.
“Schools are begging for resources and begging for guidance,” said Temkin, 26. “We see ourselves as needing to provide a framework for educators. We all want to come to some agreement on how to approach this problem.”
As the agency’s bullying-prevention coordinator, Temkin has a hand in planning educational events, providing talking points for top officials, responding to correspondence, designing research projects and coordinating work on bullying prevention with nine other departments.
After several high-profile suicides linked to bullying, Temkin’s agency was charged with coordinating a government-wide response in 2010. Her supervisor told the contest judges that Temkin “galvanized the government and, by extension, the nation.”
She was bullied herself in middle school in Tucson, an experience that she said led her to her job. She acknowledged that, working at the federal level, “we do have limited ability to intervene in individual cases.” But she said she’s making a difference at the policy level and with the department’s Web site, StopBullying.gov.
●As U.S. soldiers headed to Afghanistan in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Charles Scoville was working for the Army surgeon general’s office as chief physical therapist. His boss asked him whether the Army was ready to care for returning soldiers, some of whom would face amputations. Scoville said the military needed a more robust program to do right by its troops.
The Amputee Patient Care services unit was born in 2003, operating out of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Scoville, now 60, was ready to retire and work in the field of sports medicine. But he stayed, and was named chief. The program has helped combat amputees lead active lives, with some returning to duty, through a novel sports medicine approach.
The internationally recognized program combines traditional medical and counseling services with a physically active regime for severely wounded service members.
Scoville’s staff is working with about 170 amputees and has helped drive research into advances in prostheses.
Some of the 1,450 injured service members who have been through the program have gone on to complete triathlons, climb Mount Everest and compete in gymnastics, skiing, rowing and other sports, he said.
No matter who the amputee is, the goalpost is now set farther back.
“We look at our wounded warriors as tactical athletes,” Scoville said. “High-end athletes.”
“A lot of things we’re doing were done in previous conflicts,” he said. “But the goal then was ambulation. Our goal now is, how do we take amputee care from basic walking around to the highest level of function possible?”
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