The MGH Institute of Health Professions that is located in Charlestown in the Navy Yard for the past decade celebrated its 35th anniversary in grand fashion at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel on October 25. With more than 300 people in attendance, over $377,000 was raised for the Institute. Proceeds from the event fund scholarships for students in nursing, physical therapy, and speech-language pathology who attend the school. The final amount raised included $94,000 pledged by audience members during a live auction.Since the first Gala occurred in 2007, nearly $2 million has been raised for student scholarships at the MGH Institute. .“The scholarships we are able to award each year promote access to a professional education for a broad spectrum of our students who will go on to make exceptional contributions in their fields and touch the lives of many patients, and their families and communities,” President Janis P. Bellack, PhD, RN, FAAN, told the audience.
Gala Honorary Co-Chairs for the event were Mrs. Francis H. Burr and retiring Associate Provost for Academic Affairs Bette Ann Harris ’83, DPT, MS, the Institute’s first graduate. Mrs. Burr’s late husband “Hooks” was a Trustee of the Massachusetts General Hospital during the Institute’s founding and Chair of the MGH board when Dr. Harris graduated from the Institute
Two members of the MGH Institute Board of Trustees served as co-chairs for the event: Joseph H. “Joe” Knowles, Jr., Executive Director, Institute for Health Metrics whose father, Dr. John Hilton Knowles, was one of the school’s founding visionaries; and Elizabeth “Trish” Joyce, whose father, Dr. Charles A. Sanders, was Managing Director at Massachusetts General Hospital when the Institute was founded in 1977.
Other members of the Gala Committee were: nursing alumna Cynthia Cardon Hughes ’88; Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing alumna Margery Eramo, SON ’57; physical therapy alumna Roya Ghazinouri ’99; ’07; communication sciences and disorders alumna Janis Greim ’07; Andrea Kwiatkowski of Minute Clinic; and Eleanor Malloy of John Hancock Financial Services.
The 35th Anniversary Gala was an opportunity to commemorate the Institute’s position as one of the country’s only graduate schools devoted solely to health professions education.
“From its inception, the MGH Institute has been on the forefront in educating tomorrow’s health care leaders,” said Board of Trustees Chair George Thibault, MD. “With more than 1,200 enrolled students and almost 4,500 graduates, we continue to educate leaders who significantly impact the delivery of health care across the country and around the globe.”
The student population has doubled during the past nine years as the Charlestown Navy Yard school has expanded existing programs and added new degrees in response to the country’s shortage of health care professionals.