HoG Endows Chair at Emory
Horizons in Hemophilia, May 2013
By Trish Dominic, CEO
Hemophilia of Georgia announced on Saturday, March 23rd at its 40th Anniversary celebration that the agency had agreed to endow an adult chair in hematology and name the chair in honor of Dr. Sidney F. Stein. In addition to endowing the chair, the agency will also support the adult fellowship program in hematology at Emory over the next three years.
The chair named in Dr. Stein’s honor is HoG’s thank you to Dr. Stein for his support of HoG since the mid 1980’s. He opened the doors to Emory and started the first adult comprehensive care center for the treatment of people with bleeding disorders in the metro Atlanta area. Dr. Stein served as the center director until 1993. Today the Emory/CHOA Comprehensive and Diagnostic Treatment Center for People with Bleeding Disorders is one of the largest and most renowned centers in the U.S.
Dr Stein assisted in the development of HoG’s outreach program, a program that utilizes nurses and social workers to make home visits to provide ongoing education, home infusion training, linkages to community resources and case finding.
Throughout the years, Dr. Stein has helped our pharmacy identify the safest yet most cost-effective clotting factor products to utilize. This was especially important to our organization in the late 1980’s as these medications underwent purification processes to rid them of HIV and HCV. Dr. Stein requested that we meet with all the pharmaceutical companies and he was particularly interested in inviting the New York Blood Center to present their solvent detergent product. Dr. Stein believed that based upon his research, the solvent detergent product would be the safest. HoG purchased almost the entire supply in 1987 and continued to use this product until the monoclonal products arrived on the market. During that first year of use, more and more heat treated products still proved to transmit HIV and HCV. Countless recalls were avoided as a result of his advice and many lives saved from exposure to both viruses.
Dr. Stein encouraged HoG to become a regional core center for the Maternal and Child Health Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grants for the care and treatment of people with bleeding disorders. He went on to serve as the first Regional Medical Director.
Over the years, he has been a wonderful mentor to me and the staff. He has helped us understand medical findings, research, and new drugs as well as provided advice and guidance for future directions for the organization. He has reviewed our Hemophilia Handbook, our Protocols for the Treatment of Hemophilia and von Willebrand Disease and grant proposals from physician researchers.
It was an honor and a pleasure to present this endowment to Dr. Stein, the person who said “yes, I’ll do it” many years ago and he did it so well.