NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 27— The New York Academy of Medicine raised nearly $650,000 for urban health improvement and essential health research Wednesday night at its elegant annual black-tie Gala, held in the grand banquet hall of Cipriani 42nd Street and attended by nearly 400 people from the fields of medicine, business, and media.
Four high-profile personalities were honored for their leadership and ingenuity in improving health among residents of the United States and around the world: Katie Couric, the co-anchor of NBC’s Today show; Edward Lewis, Chairman and CEO of Essence Communications; Paul Farmer, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Medical Anthropology at Harvard Medical School; and, John C. Whitehead, Chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Each received a beautiful one-of-a-kind compote that was hand-blown by Corning Glass.
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| Edward Lewis, Katie Couric, Jeremiah Barondess, M.D, John C. Whitehead, Paul Farmer, M.D., Ph.D., and Jack Barchas, M.D. |
Dr. Barondess introduced the honorees beginning with Mr. Whitehead, saying, “He is concerned with redevelopment of the most important urban space in our nation at the present time…where physical environment, emotion, patriotism and individual and social health intersect.” Mr. Whitehead called the award a “great honor” and a treat—“Who can’t love the fact they’re being honored on the same stage as Katie Couric?”–- and used the opportunity to challenge the room full of medical professionals to do even more. Saying the healthcare system is in shambles and needs reform, he challenged medical leaders to get more involved rather than leave the task to elected officials who are less knowledgeable about health. “We could have a vast improvement in the health care of this country if only the system could be appropriately changed,” Mr. Whitehead said.
Dr. Paul Farmer gave the best stand-up routine of the evening, hands down. After Dr. Barondess described in flattering detail Dr. Farmer’s lifetime dedication to improving healthcare in the world’s least-developed regions, Dr. Farmer joked that he done so much more, such as constructing the landmark building in which they were seated and launching Katie Couric’s broadcast career. He left the crowd laughing out loud. On a serious note, Farmer said he had just flown in the night before from Haiti, where he serves as Medical Director of a rural charity hospital. “I feel very lucky to be working in places like Haiti, the slums of Peru, the prisons of Siberia,” Dr. Farmer said. He thanked the Academy for making the healthcare problems of the poor “a ranking illness in the work before us.”
Dr. Farmer, who divides his clinical time between Haiti and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Infectious Disease in Boston, told the audience that society has an important question before it: what’s the basic package of health care that each human deserves? Clearly, he said, it’s far more extensive than many now receive. “Health care should be a right, not a commodity,” said Farmer, a world-renowned authority on tuberculosis treatment and control. “People who are living in poverty do not have the kind of medical care they deserve.”
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| A handsome crowd gathers at Cipriani 42nd Street for the Academy 2005 Gala to celebrate four leaders dedicated to improving healthcare worldwide. |
Katie Couric, who spoke last before dinner was served, delivered the most poignant remarks of the evening. Couric told the rapt audience about the untimely death of her 42-year-old husband, Jay Monahan, to colon cancer in 1998 and how it motivated her to become a crusader for colon-cancer testing and research. In spring of 1997, Monahan was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer and died just nine months later after collapsing on the bathroom floor, leaving Couric devastated and their two young children fatherless. Since then, Couric has used her fame and her high-profile perch as co-host of the Today show to raise awareness about colon cancer and corral more Americans into getting colonoscopies. She told the crowd it would have been criminal for her not to use her bully pulpit to spread a life-saving message. Her first step in that direction was her March 2000 on-air colonoscopy. “I think I did bring whole new meaning to the term ‘reporter involvement,’ ” Couric told the crowd. Her brave step demystified the exam and led to a 20 percent increase in colonoscopies being performed, Dr. Barondess said, an amazing result dubbed the Couric Effect. “In many ways, I wish I had not been in that position, but my work has been so gratifying,” Couric said. “My work with colon cancer is my proudest professional moment by far.”
Couric co-founded the Entertainment Industry Foundation’s National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance, which has raised $25 million and provided major funding to launch the Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health in March 2004 in New York. Noting that many people have written to her to say that her advocacy has saved their lives, Couric read aloud a letter from someone who had been repeatedly misdiagnosed and was in failing health until she learned of the Jay Monahan Center. Doctors there treated her with compassion and ultimately matched her with a surgeon who removed a cancerous polyp from her colon. “Letters like that make the work I do with colon cancer worthwhile,” she said. “It is so gratifying to me to know we are helping people.”
Couric said it was a great honor to be publicly acknowledged by the Academy, which she called “a vitally important institution with such far-reaching ramifications.” “Thank you all so much for recognizing my work,” Couric said. “Coming from medical professionals, it means the world to me.”
A distinguished group of business leaders served as co-chairmen of the 2005 Academy Gala: Maurice R. Greenberg, Chairman and CEO of American International Group, Inc.; Joseph Hogan, President and CEO of GE Medical Systems; David H. Koch, Executive Vice President of Koch Industries, Inc.; Vincent A. Mai, Chairman of AEA Investors, Inc.; and, John D. Wren, President and CEO of Omnicom Group, Inc. The New York Academy of Medicine, a non-profit institution founded in 1847, is one of the country’s premier urban health policy and intervention centers.
Posted on 01/27/2005
Contact:
Malini Doddamani
Director of Communications
mdoddamani@nyam.org
212.822.7285
