Celebrating Our Past; Looking To The Future
In this issue of “Legacy” magazine, we honor the individuals and groups whose philanthropic spirit has defined the history of University hospitals and continues to shape our future. This past Thanksgiving, we celebrated the 120th anniversary of University hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital.
We have taken this opportunity to recognize the civic-minded women of Cleveland who, on Thanksgiving Day in 1887, saw the need to serve the children of Cleveland. Out of their vision emerged what is today the number one children’s hospital in the midwest and one of the finest children’s hospitals in the nation and the world.
We also honor the enduring support of Barbara Peterson Ruhlman, who began her service to University Hospitals more than 50 years ago as a volunteer. We celebrated her remarkable legacy of caring and generosity by dedicating the Barbara Peterson Ruhlman conference center in december. This new space features the most advanced communications technology and provides an elegant backdrop for meetings and special receptions with its unique panoramic view of Cleveland and University Circle. It is a fitting tribute to our generous benefactor who has dedicated her time, resources and vision to securing our future.
As we celebrate those who have helped us become one of the premier academic medical centers in the world, and acknowledge those in our community who are helping to transform our campus and health system today, we also reflect on the great progress we have made collectively toward making Vision 2010 a reality.
By building on the momentum we’ve established and continuing to maximize the support of our philanthropic community, 2008 will be another year of extraordinary progress. We have much to look forward to with milestone celebrations planned throughout the year, including the opening of our renovated NICU on the UH Case Medical Center campus, groundbreakings for our Cancer Hospital and Center for Emergency Medicine, and the opening of the UH Geneva Medical Office Building. With the completion of these and other Vision 2010 projects, we will move closer to our objective of delivering the highest-quality, patient-centered care in the nation.
We are honored that we have had the opportunity to achieve so much as a health system and humbled that we have received unprecedented support for our vision from our philanthropic community. I thank you in advance for your participation in our continued transformation and dedication to our mission – To Heal. To Teach. To Discover.