On May 14, Mortimer J. Buckley, chairman, Board of Trustees of CHOP, announced that CEO, Steve Altschuler, MD, was retiring, effective July 1, 2015. Madeline Bell has been appointed as president and CEO. A national search will be launched to replace Bell as chief operating officer.

Dr. Altschuler has spent almost 40 years in clinical and administrative leadership positions at CHOP, and his 15 years as CEO have benefited children worldwide.

Bell has held a number of leadership positions during her 20 years at CHOP, leading up to her appointment as COO in 2003 and president and COO in 2010. One of her major accomplishments was the expansion of the CHOP Care Network, which now has more than 50 locations.

CHOP continues to expand its care for children though the construction of various centers for clinical care. In collaboration with the City of Philadelphia, CHOP is jointly developing the Community Health and Literacy Center to be built in South Philadelphia at Broad and Morris streets. The center is the result of an innovative public-private partnership which will serve as a national model, providing children and adults with comprehensive healthcare services plus literacy and recreational programming, all in one fully integrated location. It will combine CHOP’s South Philadelphia Primary Care practice with an existing city adult healthcare facility, and will provide space for the South Philadelphia library branch and the DiSilvestro Recreation Center.

Our Princeton Specialty Care Center moved to a new state-of-the-art building in nearby Plainsboro, New Jersey, in January. In May, the King of Prussia Specialty Care Center moved into its new 135,000-square-foot facility that combines all the previous services—including Sports Medicine, Oncology, and Urgent Care—and adds an Ambulatory Surgery Center.

The Buerger Center for Advanced Pediatric Care, located across Civic Center Boulevard from the Main Campus on the Raymond G. Perelman Campus, will be open for some specialties in July.

Our condolences go out to the family of John “Jack” M. Templeton Jr, MD, a groundbreaking surgeon and director of the trauma program at CHOP who died May 16. After retiring from pediatric surgery in 1995, Dr. Templeton served as the president and chairman of the John Templeton Foundation.

Keep...Tradition! This past April, the Alumni Organization hosted our annual reception at the PAS Annual Meeting in San Diego. Nearly 150 alumni attended the event, and a great time was had by all. Be on the lookout for the 2016 PAS Annual Meeting dates.

Keep...in Mind! The Alumni Organization needs your support! The Alumni Giving Fund was established to provide valuable educational opportunities to residents, fellows, trainees, and current staff, and to encourage ongoing involvement among alumni by hosting multiple networking events each year. Every gift matters, and your support, at any level, will make an impact. You can visit www.chopalumni.org to make your contribution today.

Keep...in Touch! If you have any news about yourself or any other CHOP alum that you’d like to see included in this publication or on our website, email the editor at alumni@email.chop.edu with your special news.

Honors, Awards

  • Paul Offit, MD, professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine, former chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at CHOP, and director of the Vaccine Education Center, received the 2015 Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching from the University of Pennsylvania.
  • Michael A. Levine, MD, FACE, chief, Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes, received the Master of the American College of Endocrinology (MACE) Award during the 24th Annual Scientific & Clinical Congress of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists in Nashville, Tennessee, in May.
  • In April, Tyra Bryant-Stephens, MD, founder and director of the Community Asthma Prevention Program (CAPP) at CHOP, participated in a roundtable discussion with President Obama on climate change and public health at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Bryant-Stephens shared her firsthand experience of the health impacts of environmental factors on her patients and explained how Children’s Hospital is working to improve outcomes for asthma patients through CAPP and other initiatives.

Contributed by: Patrick S. Pasquariello, MD