Med campaign at midpoint

For more information, contact Lois Bowers, 216-368-4692 or lab11@po.cwru.edu.

Posted 10-9-00

Med school's campaign hits midpoint

CLEVELAND -- The capital campaign for Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine has reached its midpoint, having raised $160 million in gifts and commitments toward its goal of $300 million.

"The Campaign for the Future of Academic Medicine: Tomorrow's Doctors, Tomorrow's Cures" began in mid-1994 (with the public phase beginning in October 1999). It will continue until mid-2006.

These are the campaign's fundraising goals:

$75 million to support research in the basic and clinical sciences to advance the understanding and treatment of many of the nation's most pressing health care needs
$75 million for equipment and other facilities for education and research, to continue the school's dedication to educating tomorrow's doctors and discovering tomorrow's cures, and to attracting the highest caliber of students and faculty
$50 million for scholarships to attract superior medical students
$50 million for endowed professorships, to compete on a national level in attracting excellent faculty
$40 million to renovate research laboratories and education facilities for world-class research programs
$10 million to renovate and modernize the school's libraries.

The campaign chair is 1957 alumnus Theodore J. Castele, also known as "Dr. Ted."

"The CWRU medical school clearly has established itself as one of the nation's top-tier institutions both for education and research," said Nathan Berger, dean of the school and vice president for medical affairs.

For instance, he said, the medical school consistently is rated highly in the U.S. News and World Report rankings of medical schools, taking the top position in Ohio and this year nationally ranking seventh in family medicine, 14th in primary care, and 17th overall out of 125 schools.

Also, the school leads all medical schools in Ohio and is 13th in the country in receiving grant funding from the National Institutes of Health, the country's largest provider of medical research support.

"The challenge for us today is not only to maintain our hard-earned status, but to surpass it. We must enhance the medical school's tradition of excellence and leadership. The school must be a place where new ideas constantly germinate, where academic challenges are met with creative solutions and bold purpose, and where the best and brightest students learn from dedicated and distinguished faculty at the cutting edge of research and clinical care," Berger said.

"The Campaign for the Future of Academic Medicine helps the medical school meet these challenges in many ways-by endowing professorships and scholarships, by building research and clinical investigation centers, by expanding learning resources, and by seeking continuous improvement in the curriculum," he added.

-CWRU-