SHINE N
Northeast Ohio Medical University improves the health, economy, and quality of life in Northeast Ohio through the medical, pharmacy and health sciences education of students and practitioners at all levels; the development of new knowledge through research in the biomedical, community health and behavioral sciences; and the provision of community service and health education throughout Northeast Ohio.
GIVING OPPORTUNITY GOALS
CAMPAIGN TOTAL
$40 Million $20 Million ADVANCING STUDENTS
$15 Million ADVANCING INNOVATION AND RESEARCH
$5 Million ADVANCING COMMUNITY HEALTH
//// A MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT JAY A. GERSHEN
NEOMED WILL SHINE ON WITH YOUR SUPPORT Northeast Ohio Medical University has: • Forty years of preparing outstanding physicians, many of whom have established their medical practices and homes here in Northeast Ohio; • A dynamic pharmacy program, celebrating its 10 th anniversary, with 100% placement rate in positions and residencies, as well as a growing College of Graduate Studies; and • Four decades of providing best-in-class medical education and scientific research, of generating economic impact in the region, of making discoveries in the laboratory, and helping patients at their bedsides and in their communities. That’s the Northeast Ohio Medical University way! If you had the opportunity to join us on campus to celebrate NEOMED’s 40th anniversary – or if you have visited campus recently – then you have an idea of the transformation the University is undergoing. Even those who graduated or visited within the past several years are excited by the physical changes to campus, as we have doubled the campus footprint with truly impressive, state-of-the-art facilities.
Those facilities are bustling with activity as students, faculty and staff engage in multidisciplinary scholarship, collaborative learning and a shared commitment to advancing health care that permeates the landscape at our state’s only dedicated medical university. All of this is laudable – more than worthy of celebration. But we are far from resting on our laurels. This is NEOMED’s time to shine. The past decades have laid a strong foundation for success, and now is the time that we must act to ignite unprecedented achievement and community impact through the opportunities for philanthropic investment outlined here. Your generosity during Shine On: The Campaign for Northeast Ohio Medical University will make it happen. Thank you for supporting NEOMED. Because of you, this great university will shine on.
“THIS IS NEOMED’S TIME TO
SHINE.”
“THIS SCHOOL HAS BEEN VERY
GOOD TO US.”
Nicholas Miladore, M.D. (‘12), Dianne M. Bitonte Miladore, M.D. (‘81), Michael J. Miladore, M.D. (‘82), Joseph Miladore, M.D. (‘15), Michael P. Miladore, M.D. (‘10).
NEOMED: A FAMILY AFFAIR With a third son having graduated in 2015, NEOMED degrees are now unanimous among the Miladore family of five – mother Dianne (charter class of ‘81); father Mike (‘82); and sons Michael (‘10), Nicolas (‘12) and the newest grad, Joseph (‘15).
thrilled they’re in the field of medicine. It’s a great field.”
With two successful doctors in the house, it seemed natural when the Miladore sons developed their own interests in medicine.
Mike and Dianne have participated in life at NEOMED in a variety of roles since 1977, initially as students and then when they returned to the area after their residencies in Toledo – from multiple terms on the Board of Trustees and other administrative committees, to faculty positions and interviewing prospective students as part of the admissions committee. When their boys were in high school, Dianne and Mike became de facto advocates for the medical program at NEOMED with other students, dispensing advice and even conducting mock interviews to help them prepare to apply. Even now, the phone rings once or twice a week with questions from a curious high-schooler.
“People say, ‘Did you encourage them?’ but it’s just what they saw in the home,” Dianne says. “They had two physician parents and they saw we enjoyed what we were doing. We definitely didn’t discourage them. I’m
Since graduating as members of the first and second classes at NEOMED, Dianne and Mike have seen the college evolve into a valuable community asset – affordable, high-quality medical education nestled in
Mike developed an interest in medicine through Dianne, who was pre-med when they started dating at Youngstown State. From there they both went on to NEOMED and residencies, with Mike specializing in orthopaedics and Dianne in emergency medicine.
an eminently livable area. The rigorous program helps channel youthful drive, too. “The schedule was one reason NEOMED was such a great opportunity for our boys,” Mike says. “They had a lot of energy. Keeping them busy year-round with curriculum was a good thing.” Today, Michael, after recently completing his orthopaedic residency, is serving in a fellowship in hand and upper extremity surgery at SUNY Buffalo, while Nick is a fourth-year orthopaedic surgery resident at Western Michigan with an interest in total joint reconstructive surgery. Joseph, the youngest, began his general surgery residency at Youngstown’s St. Elizabeth Hospital in July. Their parents’ fingers are crossed that they’ll return to their hometown to practice. Mike and Dianne love that NEOMED allows their community to keep talented medical professionals in its midst, both as practitioners and in leadership positions. As a result, residents in the area don’t have to drive 60 miles or more to get top-of-the-line care; it’s just down the road.
“We always said that we were going to go away to train in our residencies, then come back to our area to take care of our own,” says Mike. “Our own primary care physicians are NEOMED grads,” Dianne adds. “It’s nice.” Dianne and Mike look forward to a bright future for NEOMED – with additional colleges and programs that could help underserved communities. Maybe offices for practicing physicians in the area, or an urgent care center. “There’s a lot of potential,” Dianne says. They feel pride when they drive down Interstate 76 and see the tremendous changes the school has undergone in recent years – something else they share with their sons. When their two oldest came to town for the NEOMED gala, Dianne recalls, “even the one who had graduated in 2012 could not believe the transformation. I could see the pride and sense of accomplishment on their faces when they walked into the facility.” NEOMED is a beloved presence in both the Miladore’s family and their community. “It’s very comforting knowing it is there,” says Mike. “This school has been very good to us.”
Students enhance interprofessional clinical skills and patient-centered care in the William G.Wasson, M.D., Center for Clinical Skills Training, Assessment, and Scholarship.
LIGHTING A PATHWAY TO A HEALTHIER FUTURE FOR NORTHEAST OHIO AND BEYOND At NEOMED, we do more than prepare the students who become the health care professionals who serve our communities. Our top-notch faculty, staff, students and external partners are working together to create innovative workforce solutions, re-envision how and where health care is delivered to maximize efficiency, and provide quality care where health disparities are greatest. Our students, who represent the full diversity of our nation, train together in interprofessional teams and with health care professionals from partner institutions, making them uniquely prepared for success in real-life health care settings. NEOMED students have the rare opportunity
to interact with innovators before their technology is commercialized and to learn from researchers doing some of the most groundbreaking, life-saving work in the country. As a university, NEOMED is deeply invested in this model, allocating the majority of our annual budget toward the education of our future health care workforce. Now, through Shine On, we invite donors to invest with us. Together we can educate future health care professionals, generate economic vitality for our region, and ignite discovery and innovation that will light a pathway toward a healthier future for Northeast Ohio and beyond.
//// SHINING A LIGHT ON GIVING OPPORTUNITIES FOR DONORS
CAMPAIGN PRIORITIES FOR CONTINUED SUCCESS ADVANCING STUDENTS: $20 Million • Education for Service and other student scholarship funds: Education for Service is NEOMED’s innovative program where in exchange for scholarship support, students agree to return to the area and work with underserved populations. This provides great value for the students – reducing their debt burden – as well as the communities and institutions concerned about their future primary care workforce. In fact, there is a growing need for all types of scholarships, including ones focused on financial need, academic success and enhancing diversity on campus.
Components of the Center could include enhanced use of technology to improve academic performance and the overall student experience; mentoring and/or
In addition, in February 2015 NEOMED dedicated the Inclusivity Center, designed to allow for various diversity and inclusion activities, as well as diversity-
life coaching; enhanced physical education and wellness activities; improved access to resources, including through modernization of NEOMED’s existing library; increased professional development for faculty and staff working closely with a changing student community; and heightened support of students starting at the baccalaureate level so they are better prepared for the rigors of medical education.
• Diversity Strategic Plan: In March 2015, NEOMED’s Board of Trustees endorsed the continued development of the University’s first comprehensive • Center for Student Success: Today’s students are faced diversity strategic plan. The plan will not only help with an increasingly sophisticated and demanding training create a student population and workforce of future program. While NEOMED maintains extremely high health care professionals who reflect the composition retention, graduation and placement rates, our students of the community, but will deepen a sense of community must balance intensive and often stressful demands on that is equitable and inclusive. The plan contains four their lives. The Center for Student Success concept will strategic and programmatic overarching goals: maximize the quality of learning and living for our recruitment, retention and development of campus students, promoting a healthy lifestyle that should culture and climate; curriculum and pedagogy; and continue well past their time at NEOMED. community outreach, engagement and supplier diversity.
related resources. The Inclusivity Center allows for all students, faculty and staff who partake in its offerings to feel connected, engaged and valued. Donor support will further expand the events, activities and strategies that flow from the plan and the Inclusivity Center.
Medical Professions, which will bring together the NEOMED-CSU Partnership for Urban Health with a range of other training programs in the health professions. Consideration is also being given to expanding NEOMED’s Wasson Center for Clinical Skills Training, Assessment and Scholarship – one of • Interprofessional Education: There is a growing emphasis the first and most successful interprofessional training on interprofessional education of students in the health centers in the country. sciences. NEOMED has been a long-standing leader in this area, with 40% of year one and year two medicine • Capital projects that are transforming the student and pharmacy curricula being taught jointly to students experience, including the NEOMED Education and from the two programs. Donor support will allow Wellness (NEW) Center, the Research and Graduate NEOMED to take this to the next level, including more Education Building, The Village at NEOMED and health professions in opportunities to learn together updated learning spaces. Thanks to these new facilities, and practice interprofessional education in the field. now students can not only learn at NEOMED, but can A specific focus will be developing an interprofessional live, work out, study, play and be part of a vibrant training program based at Cleveland State University’s campus community. new 100,000-square-feet Center for Innovation in
Amol Soin, M.D.
ADVANCING STUDENTS
GIVING BACK TO THE UNIVERSITY THAT PREPARED HIM FOR SUCCESS Having graduated from NEOMED in 2002 after completing his M.D., Amol Soin is already giving back to the institution he credits with giving him the fulfilling life he has today. Soin, along with his wife Yasmeen, recently made a $100,000 gift that was recognized with the naming of the Yasmeen and Amol Soin ‘02 Child Activity Center, Amol Soin ‘02 Bio-Med Science Academy Engineering Lab, the Yasmeen and Amol Soin ‘02 Conference Room, and the Amol Soin ‘02 Laboratory on the first floor of the new Research and Graduate Education Building. “I am really thankful to NEOMED for giving me an education that prepared me for residency in the real world,” says Soin, who founded Ohio Pain Clinic in his hometown of Dayton following a residency at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and a fellowship at Cleveland Clinic.
Even though it wasn’t so long ago that he graduated from NEOMED, Soin is proud of the innovative changes and growth taking place. At a recent gathering for NEOMED alumni in the Dayton and Cincinnati areas, he jokingly told the group he’d been jealous upon seeing the upgrades during a visit to campus. In all seriousness, says Soin, “the facilities at NEOMED are just above and beyond anything I’ve seen. The lab space, the lecture halls, the integration of technology in education, the housing – it’s just going to be a really nice experience for the students.” It is his thankfulness toward NEOMED – as well as a desire to see future students succeed – that drives Soin to give back. “Everything I am, came from NEOMED,” he says, noting that his wife also attended the institution before taking a leave of absence to pursue a law degree. “If you ask the other alumni, I think they would feel the same way. We need to preserve it so that others can have the same great experiences we had.”
“EVERYTHING I AM, CAME FROM .”
NEOMED
ADVANCING STUDENTS
HELPING WHERE IT’S NEEDED MOST The headquarters of Forest City Enterprises, on the upper floors of Cleveland’s Terminal Tower, overlook a city that is beloved by the Ratner family, who started the company in 1920 after emigrating to the U.S. from Poland. Since then, what started as a lumber company on Cleveland’s east side has grown into a publicly traded real estate company with high-profile projects across the country, including the New York Times building and Barclays Center in New York, and, closer to home, the renovation of Tower City Center in downtown Cleveland. “I’m a great believer in this country,” says Albert Ratner,
Forest City Enterprises’ co-chair emeritus, whose father was one of the business’ four founders. “If there was one word that brought my family to this country, it was ‘promise’ – the promise that you can do better.” Forest City Enterprises’ interests go beyond land and buildings. The company provides support for two students through NEOMED’s Education for Service partnership with Cleveland State University, which awards medical scholarships to CSU students in exchange for their commitment to return to practice in an underserved urban community following medical school and residency.
“WHEN THE COMMUNITY GETS STRENGTHENED, YOUR OWN FAMILY LIFE AND BUSINESS BECOME .”
BETTER
Albert Ratner, Forest City Enterprises’ co-chair emeritus
“Our place of interest has been in inner cities. You can’t just go and build a building; you have to become part of the community,” Ratner says. “The biggest failure in the urban areas is a combination of a lack of opportunity for people who live there and, in my view, a lack of training needed to make the right decisions to elevate themselves. The separator is education. I really believe education is a civil rights issue.” The Education for Service program also facilitates access to health care, another problem paramount to urban communities. “In the inner cities, health is a big part of the things that hinder kids,” says Ratner. “Medicine is a very important part of everybody’s life. For the average person, the issue of health is significant. You’re going to need more doctors.” Forest City Enterprises was introduced to NEOMED through the late U.S. Representative Louis Stokes, who suggested the family company might be interested in the then-new partnership between NEOMED and CSU that Stokes believed would help Cleveland’s inner city communities immensely. “When Louie asked you to do something, you did it, because you know it’s straight, it’s needed and know it’s at the core of a problem,” Ratner says. “You know you’re doing something of importance.”
Stokes was right. “It’s a great program,” Ratner says of Education for Service. “It gives a kid a chance.” In addition to the company’s support, Ratner has provided additional support, inspired by a student to whom he was introduced by a business associate. The young man had originally attended prestigious Morehouse College but left during his senior year to take care of his family after his grandmother who was raising his eight siblings died. Today he wants to be a general practitioner serving the inner city, Ratner reports, and is on his way to becoming exactly that. “Cleveland State University is located in the inner city, and this is a part of its calling – this is what it should be doing,” Ratner says, “and NEOMED, because it specializes in the more difficult areas of the community, is right there.” Ratner, who calls philanthropy “something you should just do,” considers investing in the NEOMED-CSU partnership a win-win proposition. “Philanthropy does a number of things: First, people have helped you in your lifetime, and it’s a way of helping people. Second, I look at it as an investment; you have money, and there are so many things you can do with it. Finally, it gives you an opportunity to strengthen the community, and when the community gets strengthened, your own family life and business become better.”
ADVANCING INNOVATION AND RESEARCH: $15 Million • The Healthy Aging Research Collaborative (HARC) will serve as a multidisciplinary hub for vital research into many of the medical conditions that impact our aging population. HARC will harness NEOMED’s existing research strengths in five core areas including auditory neuroscience, community-based mental health, metabolic and cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal biology and neurodegenerative diseases of aging, to create new knowledge and translate findings into solutions that promote an active lifestyle and continued wellness. Donor support for HARC will help to endow chairs and professorships that will attract and retain top faculty talent at NEOMED, outfit research laboratories with state-of-the-art equipment, and provide for other capital needs necessary for facilitating critical research that will improve the quality of life for aging adults in Northeast Ohio and beyond. In addition, HARC will partner with NEOMED’s various wellness initiatives to provide the community with information on maintaining and improving a healthy lifestyle. Researchers and students (above ) collaborate to accelerate and expand science designed to improve the quality of life.
REDIzone® is NEOMED’s Research, Entrepreneurship, Discovery and Innovation Zone that fosters innovation and technology commercialization through public-private partnerships at the university. Additional support would enable NEOMED faculty and students to become more involved in REDIzone® research and development opportunities.
“IF YOU WANT GOOD PHYSICIANS TO COME TO YOUR AREA, SUPPORT OUR MEDICAL SCHOOL SO THAT LOCAL STUDENTS WILL ATTEND AND THEN STAY IN OUR COMMUNITIES FOR THEIR CAREERS.” Eleanor Watanakunakorn and Chatrchai Watanakunakorn, M.D.
ADVANCING INNOVATION AND RESEARCH
A SENSE OF GRATITUDE DRIVES TRANSFORMATIONAL GIVING Eleanor Watanakunakorn was just 13 years old when her family’s florist business and home above it burned down, but she remembers it vividly. “We escaped in our pajamas, going down the aluminum steps of the ladder outside,” she recalls. “Our neighbors let us in.” Despite losing everything, what stayed with Watanakunakorn was how their small community in Alberta, Canada, rallied around them. “People were so good to us,” she says. “I spent the rest of that school year staying with eight to ten different families – a week here, a week there. And many people would stop by to pay my father a bill they owed and give a little extra. Some people we didn’t even know sent checks. You don’t forget things like that.” It is that deeply ingrained sense of gratitude that has driven Watanakunakorn to give back, including generous gifts to the NEOMED Foundation.
Watanakunakorn began giving to the Foundation with her husband, Chatrchai Watanakunakorn, M.D., when he was a professor of internal medicine at the school. Together they created scholarships for minority students to increase diversity and keep NEOMED a competitive choice for top students of color. Following her husband’s death in 2001, Watanakunakorn continued his legacy at NEOMED by making the largest philanthropic gift in the school’s history: $3.5 million to create an endowed chair in microbiology and immunology in her husband’s name, and a health care lectureship series for students and health care professionals throughout Northeast Ohio. The historic gift was recognized through the naming of the Dr. Chatrchai and Eleanor Watanakunakorn Medical Research Building. It is an act she knows Chatrchai would have enjoyed since, like her, he experienced hardship early in life that led him
Watanakunakorn Auditorium Dedication: Amanda Watanakunakorn, Eleanor Watanakunakorn, Jay Gershen, Paul Watanakunakorn (‘98).
to adopt a philanthropic point of view. “Growing up in Thailand, his family had no refrigerator or other modern conveniences. If you wanted to take a bath, you had to dip water from the jug in the shower room and splash it over you; that was your bath. It wasn’t until after Chatrchai and his brother had both graduated from college that they were able to buy their mother a refrigerator.” Today, Watanakunakorn maintains a close connection with NEOMED and the NEOMED Foundation – her family forever linked with the school’s community-based mission. Her son Paul graduated from the College of Medicine in 1998 and now practices internal medicine in Youngstown, and Eleanor Watanakunakorn accepted an honorary degree during the May 2014 commencement ceremony. NEOMED President Jay Gershen was pleased to bestow that honor upon one of the University’s most loyal supporters. “Eleanor serves as a leader and example to the Northeast Ohio community through her selfless passion for helping others and her philanthropic investment in the region,” he says.
Watanakunakorn encourages others in the region to see the value in giving to NEOMED, as well. “Ask many people here in Youngstown and elsewhere in northeast Ohio where their doctors got their training, and they will tell you: NEOMED. If you want good physicians to come to your area, support our medical school so that local students will attend and then stay in our communities for their careers.” Recently, Watanakunakorn made another significant investment with the NEOMED Foundation, a $1 million gift to name the Watanakunakorn Auditorium in NEOMED’s Education and Wellness (NEW ) Center. A place where medicine, pharmacy and graduate students learn together, the Watnakakunakorn Auditorium also serves our local community with lectures, movies and other events. After so many years, Watanakunakorn’s girlhood appreciation for community remains a strong force in her life. “The community’s donations helped my family get back to living again, and that wouldn’t have been possible without their help,” she says. “I believe in passing that kindness along, and I’m thankful to have been able to do that.”
ADVANCING INNOVATION AND RESEARCH
MAKING AN INVESTMENT IN NEOMED’S FACILITIES – AND NORTHEAST OHIO’S FUTURE For Anthony Manna, chair of Akron-based Signet Enterprises, the decision for his company to make a major gift to NEOMED was an easy one. He was “sold” on making a philanthropic investment following a tour of the campus that showed just how innovative a health sciences University can be. Manna had first become involved with NEOMED as a business partner; Signet built and manages The Village at NEOMED, which provides housing for nearly 350 students, and also built the NEOMED Education and Wellness (NEW) Center, a commanding facility that offers medical offices, physical therapy, lecture halls, a conference center with event space and catering, a pool and fitness center, and more.
“I WAS TOTALLY
BLOWN AWAY. ”
“When I was first involved,” recalls Manna, “I was thinking of the relationship with NEOMED from a business standpoint. But then President Jay Gershen took me on a tour and I actually saw what they were doing. I was totally blown away. I was clueless that here in Northeast Ohio we have this gem.” As an entrepreneur, Manna was impressed by programs like REDIzone™, which fosters innovation and technology commercialization at the university, including with external partners. As a father of five, he was impressed to learn that NEOMED houses the Bio-Med Science Academy STEM+M High School, the top achieving STEM high school in all of Ohio, and the sixth top achieving high school in Northeast Ohio. But as chair of a company that has developed real estate throughout the world, Manna knows how important it is
Jay Gershen and Anthony Manna.
Bio-Med Science Academy, a STEM+M high school located on NEOMED’s campus, is one of the top achieving high schools in Ohio.
to have attractive, state-of-the-art facilities on campus to recruit the best and brightest students to NEOMED. “By the time most students visit a university, they are already sold on the educational aspects of the school. So then it comes down to physical facilities. It generally takes less than a minute for somebody to be impressed – or not.” Manna points out that those who have not visited NEOMED in years will be amazed by what they see. When entering the NEW Center for the first time, he says, “everybody comes in and goes, ‘Wow.’ ”
Signet’s gift, commemorated through the naming of the NEW Center’s boardroom, is intended to ignite an even brighter future for the University. “NEOMED is a rare jewel,” says Manna. “People are always talking about preventing brain drain, and that’s what NEOMED is doing. They are keeping a large percentage of those bright graduates here. I believe that – as well as the technology commercialization startup capabilities they are putting place – makes NEOMED worthy of investment.”
ADVANCING COMMUNITY HEALTH: $5 Million • Development of new NEOMED clinical initiatives programming, such as Pharmacy Innovations or a NEOMED-based primary care clinic, will provide opportunities for students and faculty to deliver innovative, interprofessional models of care to underserved communities. • Expansion of public psychiatry through the Best Practices in Schizophrenia Treatment (BeST ) Center, which works with mental health consumers, family members, expert consultants, policy makers and mental health practitioners throughout Ohio. • Enhanced student volunteer service opportunities, whether locally, elsewhere in the United States, or even through international service and global health initiatives, will provide students with life-changing experiences while using their skills to make a difference. • Programs such as Bio-Med Science Academy STEM+M High School, Health Professions Affinity Communities (HPAC), MEDCAMP, Pathways to Pharmacy and HealthSuccess will inspire and provide pathways for the next generation of health care professionals.
College of Medicine White Coat Ceremony
Looney (center) with a family she stayed with in El Salvador’s countryside.
ADVANCING COMMUNITY HEALTH
THE MEDICINE OF INCLUSION Elizabeth Looney has seen the power of hope. She has observed it in her work as a volunteer in El Salvador, with HIV patients in Massachusetts and with inner-city school children in Cleveland. As she has listened to the stories of the people she has served, her impressions of the human spirit have altered…and so has her prescription for change. Looney now believes that treating the needs that are most apparent may not be the cure that the patient needs most. In an essay about her time in El Salvador, she writes, “I came to see that the true needs of most people were not to learn English, or have a new school built – as may be presumed by an outsider – but for inner healing, self-
efficacy and a sense of personal empowerment.’ ’ Looney continues, “I found that the best tools I had at my disposal towards this end were my time and my presence. I spent many weekends and nights with the families I came to love, ate homemade tortillas around their tables, and got to know them as people with dreams and aspirations. We walked together and bathed in the rivers, danced, and celebrated birthdays, weddings, baptisms, and fiestas of the Saints. But most of all, I listened; listened to how people survived the war, and what the realities of their gangridden communities were, and how they continued to hope and love anyway.’ ’
Who dares to think of inner healing as a prescription for those who have the least? You might imagine that this compassionate, worldly voice is that of a venerable nonprofit executive – perhaps a Baby Boomer CEO who spent her career climbing the corporate ladder and now feels a need to give back. But Elizabeth Looney, barely 30 years old, is a fourth-year medicine student at Northeast Ohio Medical University, one of the first students in the inaugural class of the NEOMED-CSU Partnership for Urban Health. She had achieved so much at such an early age that Crain’s Cleveland Business put her on the list of Who to Watch in Medicine, 2014. Growing up in Cleveland’s West Park neighborhood, Looney developed a passion for the well-being of people, community health and family medicine through the example of her parents. “My mom (Melody) was a nurse and my dad ( Jim), who worked many years for the City of Cleveland, was a huge believer in education. And they both loved helping people. They were involved in the community, and that’s how my bother ( Jim Jr.) and I were raised,” Looney noted. “We often fed people, gave them rides and many people (who were) without a place to stay, slept over.’ ’ Looney’s first taste of community medical service came during her junior year at the University of San Francisco (USF), when she studied abroad in El Salvador, then stayed on to volunteer for an organization that connected communities, churches and schools in the United States, Australia and Canada with community projects in the Latin American country. After graduation, she returned to El Salvador, where she worked as a delegation coordinator, mentoring students in a study abroad program. Upon returning to the States, Looney enrolled in the Community Social Psychology (CSP) Graduate Program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. It was during her second year, working with HIV patients as an intern at a community health center, that Looney realized she was destined for health care and family medicine. After graduating from UMass, Looney moved back to Cleveland and began taking post-baccalaureate courses at CSU to prepare for medical school. Continuing her work with the underserved, she was working as a program manager with hundreds of kids in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District when the NEOMED-CSU Partnership for Urban Health was announced. Entering the program was a natural progression for Looney. In her first year of medical school at NEOMED, she received the
Providing care to the underserved requires an extraordinary level of servant leadership. Bona fide servant-leaders rarely have time to consider how much support they need to continue helping others, but advocates for community health are taking note and doing something about it: The Pisacano Leadership Foundation (the philanthropic arm of the American Board of Family Medicine) recently recognized six students nationally who have committed to the specialty of family medicine. Elizabeth Looney is the first NEOMED student ever selected as a Pisacano Scholar. She joins distinguished honorees from Harvard University (two), Duke University, the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Colorado. The award will pay up to a total of $28,000 toward debt incurred by Looney during her fourth year and throughout the following required three-year residency. Looney notes, “Receiving assistance to help pay back medical school debt has been a huge support. While most of us going into primary care are not bothered by the fact that we will be paid less for our services than our specialty colleagues, we still have the same amount of medical school debt. The gesture of financial support provided by the Pisacano scholarship is appreciated not so much for the bottom line – though this is of course helpful! – but even more as a gesture of respect and gratitude for choosing primary care.”
Choose Ohio First Scholarship, an Education for Service award for students committed to primary care in Ohio. Already, this young community activist has worked with the disenfranchised, the disparaged and the devastated. She has listened to their struggles and gained an appreciation for the potential that could be unleashed by empowering this underserved population. Now, after having lived on the West Coast, the East Coast, and in Central America, Looney is ready to settle in Northeast Ohio and help people here write their own prescription for change.
ADVANCING COMMUNITY HEALTH
EDUCATING PHARMACISTS TO SERVE OHIO’S URBAN AND RURAL COMMUNITIES As a mutual company that exists for the benefit of its policyholders, Medical Mutual of Ohio has quite an interest in improving health outcomes. That is why their recent $1 million gift to Northeast Ohio Medical University is so important; it will improve access to patient care in medically underserved areas through the Medical Mutual Pharmacy Scholars program. The program will fund 14 four-year scholarships for NEOMED doctor of pharmacy students. Each scholarship will provide $18,000 toward annual tuition and fees – nearly 70 percent of the total. Students in good standing will be eligible to receive the scholarships during all four years of their pharmacy education. In return for substantial financial support, scholarship recipients will then work one year for every year of their scholarship award in an underserved rural or urban community in regions covered by Medical Mutual – a part of NEOMED’s innovative Education for Service initiative that prepares the next generation of health care practitioners who will serve patients in Northeast Ohio.
Executive Vice President of Care Management for Medical Mutual, Kathleen Golovan, says the program aligns perfectly with the company’s priorities and values. “It’s important to look at patients holistically in today’s complex health system, and NEOMED’s interprofessional model teaches that to students from the first day they walk through the door.” “A pharmacist can be an incredible teacher,” says Golovan. “Often the reason someone ends up being readmitted to the hospital is because they are not taking their medications the way they should be because they just don’t understand. This program can change the trajectory of the lives of the people these pharmacists will support.” While often graduating students feel pressure to take a high-paying job to cover their student loan payments, the Medical Mutual Pharmacy Scholars program will enable those who want to work in underserved communities to do so. “Education for Service is about supporting local talent,” says Golovan. “Our hope is that this program will give people who have the calling to work in underserved communities the flexibility to go and do that – to pay it forward.”
NEOMED’s Richard Kasmer (2nd from L ), with Medical Mutual’s (L to R ) Kathleen Golovan, Rick Chiricosta and Jared Chaney.
//// A MESSAGE FROM YOUR CAMPAIGN CO-CHAIRS
THANK YOU FOR HELPING NEOMED TO SHINE It’s not every day you get an opportunity to give back to an institution that has been an important part of your life. That is why we could not be more proud to serve as cochairs for NEOMED’s first-ever comprehensive campaign. Whether you are interested in helping students directly by giving to scholarships or NEOMED’s unique Education for Service program; furthering innovation and research into some of our nation’s most pressing health concerns; promoting healthy communities through clinical programs for the underserved or developing pathways to careers in health care for the next generations, NEOMED has an opportunity for you.
We urge you to give as generously as possible during Shine On. With all of us contributing to a shared goal, we can help NEOMED make an incredible impact on our students and communities. Your passion for NEOMED is what keeps the University strong – so join us in supporting NEOMED today. Together, we will enable this University to shine brighter than ever. Shine On campaign co-chairs: Judith Barnes Lancaster, Esq. Thomas S. Boniface, M.D. (‘83) J. David Heller Chuck Jones
*As of November 16, 2015
HONORARY CO-CHAIRS Eileen Burg Rick and Sheila Chiricosta Dr. Chander and Karen Kohli Anthony and Karen Manna The Honorable Harry Meshel
Richard A. (Dick) Nicely Albert and Audrey Ratner The Honorable Ralph and Mary Regula Jack and Joy Timken
Eleanor Watanakunakorn Dr. Zouhair and Carol Yassine Denise and Douglas Zeman
Myah Irick Rick Kellar Ann Klein, R.Ph. Barry Klein, R.Ph. Robert Klonk James Kravec, M.D. (‘02) Karen Leppo William Leppo Robert Littman Erwin Maseelall, M.D. Rick McQueen James Merklin
Dean Olivieri Mehool Patel, M.D. (‘98) James Pazol Robert Reitman Samuel Roth James Ruhlin Gary Shamis Bruce Sherman William Shivers Donzell Taylor Leila Vespoli Cynthia Zelis, M.D. (‘96)
CAMPAIGN CABINET Daisy Alford-Smith, Ph.D. Dominic Bagnoli, M.D. Paul Bishop Sharlene Ramos Chesnes Albert Cook II, M.D. (‘90) Mark Corr Peter DeVito, M.D. (‘91) David Dix Jeanne Fibus Joseph Gingo Joseph Halter Mark Hostettler, M.D. (‘84)
President, Northeast Ohio Medical University Jay A. Gershen, D.D.S., Ph.D.
President, Northeast Ohio Medical University Foundation Daniel S. Blain