Dr. Gabbe looks back on highlights from 2011
What a remarkable year it’s been at the Medical Center! As we watch holiday decorations going up in the Medical Center Plaza, it’s amazing to think back on all we’ve accomplished in 2011.
UHC named us one of the safest academic medical centers in the country, and U.S. News called us the best health system in Central Ohio. The accolades we’ve received as individuals, as teams and as a Medical Center are so numerous that I can only mention a few of them in this video.
We received the largest grant and the largest gift in Ohio State University history this year, and we thank the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the grant, and Les Wexner and The Limited Foundation for the gift and for their belief in Ohio State and in our capacity to improve people’s lives. Because of their support, generations to come will look back and say, “But for Ohio State, health care would not be what it is today.”
It was a year of firsts, as well, including our first islet cell transplant, and the first six-way, single-institution kidney transplant in Ohio. We also made significant breakthroughs in research that may one day lead to simple blood tests for lung cancer, treatments for obesity, and gene therapy for brain tumors.
It was also a year of integration. Our physicians fully integrated with the Medical Center and University, and we launched IHIS, our Integrated Healthcare Information System. Through both of these initiatives, patient care at the Medical Center will be more coordinated, comprehensive, efficient and effective. We completed the “Lead. Serve. Inspire.” curriculum, which will change the way our medical students learn and practice medicine beginning next fall.
And we watched as an empty construction site became a foundation, and now the steel frame of the New James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute and critical care tower. It’s rising into the sky every day and serves as a symbol of the work we still have ahead of us, and of the promise that our future holds.
Yet, all of these accomplishments I’ve mentioned pale in comparison to the lives you all have touched and changed over the course of this year. You give generously of your time and talent. You walk for hearts and HIV and diabetes and autism. You race for a cure and you ride to end cancer.
None of what we’ve achieved would be possible, but for the teamwork you display and the teamwork we all enjoy here at Ohio State. I offer my deepest thanks to you, our faculty, our staff, our students, to President Gee and his leadership team, to our Medical Center board members and to the University Board of Trustees, for the role each of them have played in another year of success and growth.
I’m grateful for your strength, your resiliency and your commitment to excellence. Pat and I send you our best wishes this holiday season and I look forward to seeing you again next month.