David B. Hellmann,
MD, MACP
The Center for Innovative Medicine was founded with a critical mission: to make medicine a better public trust.
Just what does it mean to be a public trust? I think renowned physician and public health expert Steven Schroeder may have said it best in his seminal 1989 paper: “Medicine is entrusted by society to improve the health of the public through education, patient care and research. In return, medicine receives significant public funding, respect and autonomy.”
Today, we are living through an extraordinary season in our nation, with so much at stake in federal funding for biomedical research. It’s critical that we re-commit to this core principle of making medicine a better public trust, and that we share our efforts with everyone who will listen — notably our elected leaders and citizenry. As physician-scientists, I’m convinced we could all do a better job of communicating our work and its life-saving impact to the public, and of offering gratitude for the taxpayer funding and philanthropic support that makes that work possible.
Both efforts — communicating and saying “thanks!” — have always been key to CIM’s Breakthrough magazine and this issue is no exception. You’ll find compelling articles that describe ways CIM-funded faculty and staff are humanizing medicine — through impact grants that improve patient care (p. 12), research aimed at quantifying humanized health care (p. 2) and advocacy to equip physicians to be better listeners (p. 8). The throughline of every article in the issue? This life-changing work wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of CIM’s donors.
And wait — there’s more! The extraordinary generosity of our donors has now made it possible for CIM to launch an ambitious new funding initiative through the Department of Medicine. Over the next year, thanks to significant funding from CIM donors, the Department of Medicine will be offering 12 “CIM/Next Generation Scholar Awards” to support the success of outstanding early-career faculty who are innovators in research, education and clinical care. Each CIM/Next Generation Scholar will be eligible to receive up to $240,000 of funding over three years.
This funding comes at a critical time and meets an urgent need. To all of our donors: Thank you. Our gratitude knows no bounds.
David B. Hellmann, M.D., M.A.C.P.
Aliki Perroti Professor of Medicine
