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In This Issue:
Couple gives $3 million to BWH campaign
Nearly 300 members of the Brigham and Women’s family—donors, trustees and hospital leaders—raised a toast to Gerald and Elaine Schuster last Friday night as the couple received the 2002 Heritage Society Award, the hospital’s “Nobel Prize” for volunteer leadership and philanthropy.
At the dinner where friends and family surrounded the honorees, BWH President Gary Gottlieb, MD, MBA, had a late-breaking announcement to make. The newest pledge to the hospital’s Great Medicine in the Making campaign, made last week, was $3 million … from Jerry and Elaine, whose many gifts now total $5 million.
The Schusters’ relationship with BWH began 25 years ago, when one son successfully donated a kidney to another; since, the family has received care from dozens of BWH specialists. In gratitude, the Schusters have hosted hospital events, supported programs in surgery and oncology, lent valued expertise to the Board and Partners HealthCare System, and brought new friends to BWH.
President and CEO Samuel Thier, MD, its Chairman, Jack Connors, Jr., and BWH Surgery Chairman Michael Zinner, MD, highlighted the Schusters’ exemplary initiative and “quiet, caring” spirit: Leadership in fundraising for the Richard Wilson Chair in Surgical Oncology; establishment of a fellowship in gynecologic oncology; co-chairmanship of the 5th-anniversary BWH Palm Beach celebration; and, recently, creation of a hospitality cart for radiation oncology patients.
In his own remarks, Board Chairman Michael Bell captured a widely held view when he said “You set a standard for us all.”