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Dear Friends

Strong Kids Newsletter

Dear Friends

Nina F. Schor, MD, PhDI don’t know how it has been for you, but for me, the year has just flown by! I can hardly believe the summer has ended, the leaves have largely left the trees, and we are about 7 months away from moving into our new Golisano Children’s Hospital building! We have so much for which to be thankful – from the generosity of our community, our major donors, our medical center and university leadership, to our dedicated and compassionate clinical faculty and staff, to our brilliant and driven researchers and educators, to the architects and builders and engineers. Everyone has literally pulled together to make a new house for the recovery of our regions ill children and their families.

On top of that, many have heeded my call to them, imploring them not to forget that, as the song goes, “A house is not a home.” They are helping us keep the people and the programs that will turn our new house into a home going strong in perpetuity. This year, we welcomed Kirsi Jarvinen-Seppo, MD, PhD, a pediatric allergist-immunologist who will become our first occupant of the Founders’ Chair in Pediatric Allergy, funded by Eric Dreyfuss, MD, himself a local pediatric allergist and educator. We had the honor and pleasure of naming Ruth Lawrence, MD, a neonatologist and toxicologist and a graduate of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, the inaugural occupant of the Northumberland Trust Chair in Pediatrics, funded by an anonymous donor.

Honoring our outstanding faculty and giving them and Golisano Children’s Hospital the financial wherewithal to take a risk and try something innovative that may lead, down the road, to new diagnoses, cures, and preventive measures is what makes Golisano Children’s Hospital valuable, not just to the children of Rochester, but to children all around the country and world. It is what allows us to make children, not just here today, but for generations to come, healthier and happier and better equipped to face whatever challenges inevitably come their way.

I hope you enjoy reading about the innovations that have enriched the life of neuroblastoma patient, Delaney Doyle, and the superstar physicians, nurses, and laboratory studies that will ultimately make life better for children with cancer, craniofacial abnormalities, autism, and so many other developmental afflictions. And I hope their stories will inspire you this holiday season to be thankful for all of our blessings this year and to “pay it forward” so that others can enjoy these blessings, too.

All the best,

Nina F. Schor, MD, PhD