Before his death last February, Sidney "Rosey" Rosenbluth, Jefferson Medical College, class of 1932, named Thomas Jefferson University as the chief beneficiary of his will. The bequest $1.5 million for unrestricted use by the Department of Medicine has been named the Sidney Rosenbluth Fund.
Dr. Rosenbluth practiced internal medicine for many years in New York City before his retirement. "It is very fitting that we use this truly generous gift for research and support of the various divisions of the Department of Medicine, because of Dr. Rosenbluth's specialty," says Joseph S. Gonnella, MD, Dean of Jefferson Medical College. "Since this bequest is unrestricted, it gives us the freedom to utilize the funds where they are most needed, for years to come, which is a fine legacy for such a loyal alumnus."
Van Ameringen Foundation Bolsters Jefferson's Chinese Community Project
The van Ameringen Foundation has granted the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Chinese Community Partnership for Health $126,525 over two years for a trilingual psychiatric nurse practitioner to provide direct mental-health services to the Chinese-language-speaking community. The Partnership, composed of leading Chinese community members and organizations, and physicians and nurses from Jefferson, was created a year ago to reduce the serious illness and fatalities associated with untreated disease in the local urban Chinese population.
Residents of the rapidly expanding Chinatown community who are experiencing psychiatric problems will now receive more effective help. The language barrier is a serious obstacle to communication of symptoms for these patients, who also experience cultural stigma associated with mental illness. The nurse-practitioner funded by the van Ameringen Foundation will be fluent in English as well as in the Mandarin and Cantonese dialects, which are the prevalent dialects in Philadelphia's immigrant Chinese population, and will practice in the Chinatown offices of two community-based Jefferson physicians and in Jefferson's Crisis Center.