Its
funny how good things sometimes come out of the most traumatic events. When
Mack was diagnosed, Dr. Levey immediately insisted that he meet with the
entire familyincluding Mackto talk about the disease and answer
our questions, she says. That meeting was extremely difficult
for all of us, especially Mack. But we survived it, and because none of
us could deny the reality that lay ahead, we determined to face it together.
We are grateful to Dr. Levey for his commonsense approach. Making the
decision to keep her husband at home wasnt difficult. Finding a
responsible team of around-the-clock caregivers was. After working with
an agency, Mrs. Taylor decided to manage the nurses herself to insure
the best quality care for her husband. For the past
five years, Dr. Levey has guided the Taylors through the management of
this disease, always involving the family in Macks treatment. Mrs. Taylor
and her husbands two children, Andrew Taylor and Camille Taylor
McDuffie, recently donated $500,000 to establish the Charles McKenzie
Taylor Fund for Alzheimers Care and Discovery. The money will help
fund Leveys clinical and basic research, which focuses on the genetics
and molecular neurobiology of Alzheimers. The gift will also contribute
to the clinical program of the Alzheimers Disease Center, which
offers early diagnosis and ongoing care from a multidisciplinary team
of neurologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and nurse practitioners. Mrs. Taylor
says Dr. Levey is a rare find. Well be forever indebted to him for his extraordinary sense of humanity and great bedside manner. My husband adores him. They have a very special bond. After those first few very traumatic meetings, it evolved into a very comfortable and trusting relationship. Emory and all of Atlanta is extremely fortunate to have someone who is not only a leading light in the research community but also a remarkable clinician with extraordinary sensitivity to both the patient and family. (BACK TO TOP) Emorys
much-loved cardiologist and poet John Stone has served the medical
school for decades, and now a way has been found to keep him here always.
Fund-raising is now under way to establish a professorship in his name,
and $750,000 is the goal. This will honor Stones special contributions
to medical education and continue his legacy of keeping humanity front
and center in medical practice. Raising the roof to fight prostate cancer
Powerhouse
fund for lung transplantation The gift
also creates the Augustus J. McKelvey Chair in Lung Transplan-tation Medicine,
named in honor of his late father, a general medicine practitioner. E.
Clinton Lawrence, Emory professor of medicine and medical director of
lung transplantation, has been nominated for the chair and will direct
the center. In addition
to the center and chair, the gift allows for recruitment of the McKelvey
Young Investigatorsat least five new faculty in the basic and clinical
sciences related to lung disease. The gift will also bring a distinguished
leader in transplantation or pulmonary medicine to campus each year as
the McKelvey Visiting Professor. Emorys
lung transplant program, the only one in Georgia, has been in existence
since 1993 and has survival rates comparable to the national one- and
three-year rates of 72% and 61%, respectively. This
gift provides the means for our program to fulfill its twin missions of
improving outcomes in lung transplant while offering novel medical therapies
for complex lung disorders, says Lawrence. Grants for needy transplant recipients Two new grants
from the Carlos and Marguerite Mason Trust are helping ensure access to
care for patients in Georgia who need transplants. Wachovia Bank, trustee
of the Mason Trust, awarded the Emory Transplant Center a two-year grant
of $1 million to support its Access to Transplant Care Project and $118,000
to support bridge funding for the Emory Eye Centers Pediatric Cornea
Transplant Program, the only such program in the state. The Mason
Trust initiated the Access to Transplant Care Project two years ago to
help financially disadvantaged Georgians and others referred to Emory
for transplant. The new gift enhances access to care throughout the transplant
process, before, during, and after the transplant, and also focuses on
increasing the number of The bridge
funding grant allows the Emory Eye Center to continue supporting the care
of children needing cornea transplants. Among the most difficult cases
to manage in children, cornea transplants require extensive follow-up
care, which insurance rarely pays for. Making an impact in adolescent health Jane Fonda
believes more should be done to make sure adolescents grow up happy, healthy,
and strong in body, mind, and spirit. Thats why she recently donated
$2 million to establish the Jane Fonda Center at Emory, located on the
Emory Briarcliff campus. My
goal for the center is to provide the very best training in the Southeast
for professionals in early child development, adolescent reproductive
health, and patient advocacymost especially in the areas of violence
and abuse, says Fonda. We want to reach child care workers,
case managers in child protective services, teachers of sexuality education,
and people who need and want training in parenting skills.
The team
of Howard and Fonda has broken new ground beforeon state initiatives
in adolescent reproductive health and teen pregnancy prevention such as
the Grady Health Systems Teen Services Clinic. Fonda recently donated
$1.3 million to kick off a campaign to finance renovation of the Teen
Services Clinic into a more teen-friendly space in a new location, with
expanded hours and services. The Jane
Fonda Center will have a synergistic relationship with the Grady program,
exchanging knowledge and experiences. Researchers at the center will also
study and evaluate programs around the country that are similar to Gradys. Preventing
teen pregnancy has been important to Fonda for many years. In 1995, she
helped establish the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention,
which aims to lower Georgias adolescent birth rate, which is among
the top 10 nationwide. Understanding
suicidal tendencies Purselle studies suicide in patients with bipolar disorder, unipolar depression, and schizophrenia. He uses SPECT and PET scanning in clinical studies of serotonin transporter density among depressed, suicidal patients. In future studies, he plans to explore correlations between serotonin transporter density and the degree of suicidal behavior. (BACK TO TOP) Help
the next generation follow their dreams Things are
different now. The cost of educating young doctors-to-be has skyrocketed
as medicine has become more high-tech and the government less supportive
of financing medical education. Indeed, more than 50 graduates this past
spring accumulated more than $100,000 in debt related to their medical
education. The staggering
cost of medical education may dissuade many potential physicians from
entering medical school, and for many who do, the debt load factors heavily
into their choice of specialty. School of
Medicine Dean Thomas Lawley has made increasing scholarship assistance
a priority. This
kind of debt burden means that these students, as soon as they are able,
have to go out and make money, Lawley says. They cant
go into academic medicine, they cant do research, and they cant
go into an indigent care situation. That is simply wrong. Pendergrast
wants to help. He is leading the way for the Class of 1972, donating a
leadership contribution for a class scholarship fund. The contribution
was made in memory of John Bostwick, a much loved faculty member who died
last year. He hopes the fund will help medical students follow their dreams. Medicine
is such a demanding field that it must be a true callinga passionfor
those who enter it, he says. To succeed, a person must be
focused and tenacious, and no matter what, they cannot let go of their
dream. Scholarships
are essential to continue to attract the best, brightest, and most driven
students into medicine. Health is so important to the welfare of
society, and we want to feel confident that the best and most qualified
people are entering the field as a calling, says Pendergrast. The
next generation of physicians is crucial for us, our children, and our
childrens children. For Pendergrast, helping others to achieve their dreams is a legacy. He comes from a long line of Georgians who have valued education and encouraged others to pursue it. He urges other members of the Class of 1972 to contribute to the class scholarship fund and other classes to begin their own scholarship funds. (BACK TO TOP) The
lasting legacy of the Whitehead family Whitehead
died too young, at age 41, to reap many of the benefits of what he had
built, but the wealth he amassed has benefited countless others, through
foundations established by his widow, Lettie Pate Whitehead, and their
two sons, Joseph Jr and Conkey Pate Whitehead. Gifts from the Whitehead
family foundations rank among the largest in American higher education
and have helped transform Emory in countless ways over the past seven
decades. In April
2002, Emory dedicated the foundations most recent gift, the $81.3
million Whitehead Biomedical Research Building. In tribute to the
family, glass etchings of the four family members are on permanent display
in the building lobby, along with plaques listing their various gifts
to Emory. Among these are the Whitehead Surgical Pavilion in Emory Hospital, which was completed in 1946 and comprises the entire front right wing of the hospital. The Joseph B. Whitehead Chair of Surgery, which has had four incumbents since it was created in 1939, has helped the Department of Surgery handpick from among the best leaders in surgery in the world. (BACK TO TOP)
Copyright © Emory
University, 2004. All Rights Reserved |