Nanette Laitman Scholarship Program
The Nanette Laitman Clinical Scholars Program in Public Health is funded by a $3 million gift from the Laitman family and a $1 million matching gift from Weill Cornell Medical College’s “Advancing the Clinical Mission” capital campaign. For this the Department is deeply grateful to Nanette Laitman, as well as to the College. The Clinical Scholars Program provides funding for clinicians to engage in research in the areas of prevention (with a focus on women’s health), clinical evaluation, community health, and quality of care research.
William B. Borden, MD, MBA, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology and Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Prevention and Health Behavior, has been named the Nanette Laitman Clinical Scholar in Public Health (Prevention and Women’s Health). He is also an Assistant Attending Physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Borden earned an MD from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He completed his residency and chief residency in Medicine and a clinical fellowship in Cardiology at the University of Chicago, where he also completed postdoctoral research training in outcomes research and patient oriented research, specializing in preventive cardiology. For his scholarship, Dr. Borden has planned a research agenda to develop health policy projects evaluating aspects of cardiovascular primary and secondary prevention related to the delivery of care. These include studying the impact of intense media coverage about medical research studies on medication adherence, studying the impact of a proposed Medicare pay-for-performance policy on locationally disadvantaged hospitals, and evaluating whether patients in a real-world registry receive the medical secondary prevention of coronary artery disease shown to be effective in clinical trials.
Carla Boutin-Foster, M.D., M.S., Associate Professor of Medicine, Associate Professor of Complementary and Integrative Medicine, Associate Professor of Public Health in the Division of Community and Public Health Programs, and Associate Attending Physician, is the Nanette Laitman Clinical Scholar in Community Health. She is also the supervisor and faculty advisor for Weill Cornell Community Clinic-Medical student free clinic and Co-Director of the Office of Multicultural and Minority Health. Recently, she was named Director of Diversity in Medicine and Science of the Medical College's newly established Office of Faculty Diversity in Medicine and Science. Much of her research focuses on cross-cultural, community, and preventive medicine. As part of her role as Laitman Scholar, Dr. Boutin-Foster is engaging in research and initiatives targeted at communities that are hardest to reach but that experience the highest burden of health disparities. She focuses especially on cardiovascular disease, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and mental health. Specifically, she is developing academic partnerships within communities in New York City that have the poorest health profiles. These projects identify social, cultural, and political barriers to the effective dissemination of health messages in these communities and develop and evaluate community-based strategies such as curricula, conferences, or workshops that improve dissemination of health messages. Dr. Boutin-Foster is Director of a Comprehensive Center of Excellence in Disparities Research and Community Engagement (CEDREC), a consortium between Weill Cornell Medical College, Hunter College School of Nursing, City University of New York, Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center; and the Center for Healthful Behavior Change at New York University School of Medicine. The Center is supported by the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD).
Lisa M. Kern, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Professor of Public Health and Medicine in the Division of Quality and Medical Informatics, has been awarded a second Laitman Scholarship in Clinical Evaluation, originally awarded in 2006. She is also the Deputy Director of the Health Information Technology Evaluation Collaborative (HITEC), an academic collaborative that was recently awarded a $5.25 million contract to evaluate New York State’s investment in health IT. Dr. Kern has methodological expertise in quality measurement, community-based participatory research, and analysis of large datasets. She is a principal investigator on several grants that evaluate the effects of interoperable health IT on quality, cost, patients, providers and policy. She has had a longstanding interest in quality of care in the ambulatory setting, where adoption of health IT has lagged and where rapid changes are underway nationally. Dr. Kern is also evaluating the effects of related interventions, such as medical home implementation. Dr. Kern is also the Director of a new fellowship program in Healthcare Quality and Medical Informatics Research to train the next generation of clinician-investigators in rigorous evaluation of health IT and related interventions. The Laitman Scholarship is helping to fund her work in these areas.
Nanette Laitman is the daughter of William and Mildred Lasdon, now deceased, who were generous benefactors to Weill Cornell Medical College, and for whom Lasdon House, the Medical College dormitory, is named. Ms. Laitman has followed in her parents’ footsteps as a major philanthropist. She has a special interest in public health. She previously endowed the position of the Chairman of the Department of Public Health. The Nanette Laitman Clinical Scholars Program is the largest endowment for junior faculty in any department within the Medical College.
