By Lawton Snyder, CEO, the Eye & Ear Foundation
Every December, I like to look back at progress that has been made over the past year. This year has been an especially important one for the Eye & Ear Foundation and the Departments of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery because together we have reached some very important milestones and established some new and exciting goals. The big milestone we crossed was at the end of 2023, which is when we completed our campaign goal of raising $80 million.
The New Horizons for Care campaign gave Dr. José-Alain Sahel and the Department of Ophthalmology the ability to more than double their clinical and research faculty to build a vision research team that by depth and breadth of programs is tops in the world. With this, there are many new discoveries and opportunities that you can always read about in this publication and others, but needless to say, there is a lot to be grateful for and proud of.
As the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery has also benefited from the New Horizons for Care campaign. These resources helped maintained the Department’s top ranking in the country, but with the arrival of Dr. Jose Zevallos, there has been a tremendous increase of new talent and programs. With this growth, the EEF board approved an extension of the New Horizons for Care Campaign, with new goals to be reached. Two institutes will be established: the Institute for Head & Neck Surgery and the Pittsburgh Hearing Institute. The latter will eventually be on the sixth floor of the UPMC Mercy Pavilion in the same building as the UPMC Vision Institute.
You can count on hearing from EEF in 2025 about the newly established goals, how the initiatives will benefit the health of our Pittsburgh community and beyond, and how you can support all these endeavors.
To all our readers and generous donors, thank you and have a great year!