Tim Eldridge was featured on the University of Iowa College of Medicine web site in October 2003.  Tim was in the core group that worked to reactivate the Iowa PSR chapter and then was a founding member of the student PSR affiliate last year.  Tim stimulated interesting discussions in the college last spring when he asked several University of Iowa Deans how they would deal with a medical student who became involved in nonviolent civil disobedience.  With permission of the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, the following is reprinted from the college web site.

Tim Eldridge:
Goal is to promote open and honest discussion

By Jessie Rolph, Health Science Relations

Tim Eldridge is a medical student with a mission.

As a founding member of the University of Iowa chapter of Student Physicians for Social Responsibility (SPSR), Eldridge, a second-year student in the UI Carver College of Medicine, works to promote peace.

Through education, dialogue, lobbying, and collaboration with other groups, SPSR strives to eliminate nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, to achieve a sustainable environment, to reduce violence and its causes, and to promote peace and social justice, Eldridge said.

After initially becoming involved with the Iowa City chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), Eldridge and a group of other students decided to create a SPSR group in the UI Carver College of Medicine.

The group's main activities over the past year have focused on educating both the UI and Iowa City communities on U.S. foreign policy. As the main contact person for SPSR, Eldridge has helped to organize a series of luncheon guest speakers, including Burns Weston, UI law professor and director of the UI Center for Human Rights; Ira Shorr, national field director for PSR's Program on Security; and Bradley Doebbeling, M.D., UI professor of internal medicine and epidemiology. SPSR also arranged two open discussions during the spring semester on personal identity and medical culture.

"The idea is to create an environment where participants feel encouraged to discuss potentially volatile issues openly and honestly with each other," Eldridge said. "While it's quite easy to throw a group of people into a room and get them to talk about a certain topic, getting someone to actually give their honest opinion on something is a different matter."

Through open discussions, medical students can improve communication skills, bond with their classmates and experience a variety of viewpoints, creating a better understanding of the issue, Eldridge said.

Last spring, Eldridge also spent a few nights at the Peace Camp. The Peace Camp was a gathering of people who camped on the UI Pentacrest from March to May to protest U.S. actions in Iraq. There, Eldridge learned a few things about activism and social issues.

"One lesson I took from the Peace Camp is that if one truly wants to understand certain issues, it can only be done through dialogue," he said. "Debate and argument rarely achieve anything other than creating animosity and ill will. I think it follows that if SPSR wants to promote community education on issues like American foreign policy, we have to do so by facilitating dialogue as much as possible, rather than simply hitting people over the head with one-sided information."

While he is still considering which area of medicine to pursue, Eldridge knows for sure that he will continue to stay politically active in grassroots organizations throughout his medical career. He also hopes to continue writing and traveling, and to possibly practice medicine overseas.

Originally from Charles City, Iowa, Eldridge majored in biochemistry at Wartburg College in Waverly, IA before coming to the UI.

University of Iowa, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, 200 CMAB, Iowa City, IA, 52242, 319-335-6707

Copyright ©, The University of Iowa.  Reprinted with permission.