Every year, advances in medicine improve our society. As we look to next year, during a short well-deserved winter break and holiday season, I invite you to pause and reflect on the remarkable accomplishments we achieved in the field of medicine this year. I am especially proud of our collaborative spirit, which led to our successful LCME accreditation—a milestone made possible by the tireless dedication of hundreds of faculty, staff and students across all of Cleveland. Thank you for your perseverance and commitment to excellence.
With this spirit of achievement in mind, I hope you find time—whether your break takes you to the desert, the sun or the snow (my family will experience all three)—to reconnect with what inspires us most: the enduring impact of medicine. Medicine has always been society’s assurance of a better future, fueling our passion for discovery and our drive to improve lives.
Our collective achievements are part of a much larger tradition in medicine—a tradition of relentless curiosity and determination. I was recently reminded of this by a about Louis Pasteur, who cherished “discovery with an attitude.” His pioneering experiments proved the microbial cause of infections and paved the way for lifesaving breakthroughs, patents and drugs like penicillin, as highlighted by our own Professor Robert Bonomo, MD, on the . Many of your discoveries, hopefully realized more quickly, will continue this legacy—advancing human health through urgency and mission.
Last year, I commented on the dramatic improvement in treating acute lymphocytic leukemia. Today, bi-specific antibodies combined with less chemotherapy can cure most patients—whereas, when I began my career, most had little hope for survival. Even more encouraging, new may now be able to cure the 8% of patients who do not respond to bi-specific antibodies. These examples are just a glimpse of the progress happening across every medical field.
Such breakthroughs often require years—sometimes even a lifetime—of dedication. We are reminded of this by the legacy of two outstanding faculty members we have lost in the past two years, before they realized their goal of FDA approval and patient benefits: Arnold Caplan, PhD, whose discoveries with for pediatric graft versus host disease, and Jerry Silver, PhD, whose decades of breakthroughs made it possible for . Their commitment, like that of Louis Pasteur, shows us how persistence in research can transform lives, even after many years.
As you enjoy your winter break, I hope you find time for rest, inspiration and perhaps the spark for your education and your next discovery. Thank you for all you do to advance our mission: “To improve health globally by linking groundbreaking innovation and research directly to patients and populations, within a world class ecosystem of medicine and education.”
Wishing you a healthy, hopeful new year!
Sincerely,
Stan Gerson, MD
Dean and Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs, CWRU School of Medicine
Director, National Center for Regenerative Medicine
