Nicaragua’s Needy Keeps Pediatrician Busy

In his practice in Santa Monica, pediatrician Robert Hamilton treats children who have all sorts of problems, but hunger is not usually one of them.

Most of the families of his patients are well able to keep food on the table.

So when he took a volunteer medical trip to Nicaragua in 1988, it dawned on him slowly that a young mother with a listless, pale, abnormally blond baby had not been negligent in feeding him, but simply had no food, he said.

“Tears came to my eyes,” he said, recalling the moment recently in his Wilshire Boulevard office. “I gave her money, I didn’t know what else to do. And I realized she wasn’t alone.”

Since then, the Pacific Palisades resident has led three teams of physicians, nurses and other volunteers to the Verbo Clinic in Managua to help fill the need for medical care and deliver medical supplies for the people of the impoverished country.

Hamilton, his wife, Leslie, and friend Carolyn M. Mullaney held a fund-raiser recently at the home of a friend in Pacific Palisades that raised about $20,000 for medical supplies and to help the clinic build an operating room, he said. The donations will be matched $1 for every $2 by the Maryland-based Marcia Tucker Foundation.

On Monday, Hamilton will spend the day escorting Nicaraguan Minister of Health Ernesto Salmeron on fact-finding visits to Santa Monica and St. John’s hospitals in Santa Monica and the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Westwood. The visit will conclude with a reception at the Bel-Air Bay Club in Pacific Palisades.

“I feel called to do this,” said Hamilton, 37, a father of five, explaining why he has returned to Managua, and why he will return again in October. “I certainly feel blessed by God by everything we’ve been given in this country. . . . I’m doing this to bless other people. Hopefully, we’re making a difference.”

The Westchester/LAX Chamber of Commerce appointed Lukman Clark, a former consultant to the city of Pomona, as its new executive director.

Clark, who received an MBA in international management from UCLA in 1976, was also recently approved by the state Senate as a member of the new Canada-California Trade Advisory Commission.

UCLA has appointed professor David Lewin as the director of the UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations and to the faculty of the Anderson Graduate School of Management.

Lewin, who graduated from the Anderson school in 1971, comes to UCLA from Columbia University, where he served as professor, director of the doctoral program and director of the Industrial Relations Center at the Graduate School of Business.

He succeeds J.B. Mitchell, who served as director for the past 11 years.

AIDS Project Los Angeles has appointed a former public policy specialist, Mario Solis-Marich, as its new director of public policy.

Solis-Marich, who also serves on the city of Los Angeles AIDS Advisory Committee, was founder of the Neighborhood AIDS Consortium and is a member of the Coalition for Compassion, a health advocacy group consisting of 30 AIDS-service organizations.

West Los Angeles resident Sue Gordon was honored as a “Community Salute Hero” by the Los Angeles Dodgers for parties she has organized for fellow wheelchair-bound muscular sclerosis patients.

The ballclub invited Gordon into the on-deck circle during a recent home game at Dodger Stadium and presented her with a signed baseball, autographed photographs and a jersey.

The Los Angeles County Chiropractic Society has named Santa Monica resident Glenn Fischel as its 1990-91 president.

The 700-member society, made up of 10 local chiropractic associations, seeks to increase awareness and understanding of chiropractic.

The local Santa Monica Society named Michele Bosten as its president for the year 1990-91.

Beverly Hills High School graduating senior Jennifer Stein has been awarded the first Burton E. Green Public Administration Scholarship Award. Stein, winner of the Los Angeles County Youth Award and co-editor of her high school yearbook, received $1,000 from a fund donated by the Burton E. Green Foundation to encourage Beverly Hills High School students to pursue education in the field of public administration. Stein will attend the University of Pennsylvania.