Endowed chairs are common in higher education but rare at community teaching hospitals. Lehigh Valley Health Network currently has 13 endowed chairs and recently announced new holders for three of them: Michael Pasquale, MD, in surgery; Ann Panik, RN, senior vice president for patient care services, in nursing; and Alex Rosenau, DO, in emergency medicine. “Our endowed chairs allow us to enhance patient care through education and clinical research, thereby creating a healthier community,” said Ronald Swinfard, MD, the health network’s president and chief executive officer. Some of the services the new chair holders hope to fund through their appointments include the development of mobile health care apps to give doctors key health information about patients on their cell phones; boosting the number of registered nurses with baccalaureate degrees; and adding a pediatric emergency medicine simulator to further the education of caregivers in the area’s only Children’s ER at Lehigh Valley Hospital—Cedar Crest. The chairs are made possible through the generosity of donors including the Dorothy Rider Pool Health Care Trust, the Auxiliary of Lehigh Valley Hospital and community members.
Jayne Febbraro, MSN, RN, CRNP, an educational specialist in Lehigh Valley Health Network’s division of education, has been honored with a Nightingale Award of Pennsylvania. She was announced as the winner in the nurse educator–staff category during the Nightingale Awards Gala at the end of October.
