A trio of national medical leaders returned to their alma mater, Salesainum, to discuss the future of their field and healthcare.
It’s been decades since Joseph Hahn, Anthony Monaco and Steven Leach attended the all-boys Catholic school in Wilmington. Since graduating, they’ve gone on to extraordinary careers in medicine. Back at their high school home, they spent an hour weighing in on pressing health issues ranging from cancer diagnosis to the troubles in our pharmaceutical industry.
Monaco, president of Tufts University and a 1977 Sallies' grad, told the audience of students, faculty and guests that while we’ve made many leaps with medical technologies, such as human genome sequencing, much more work will be needed to see the benefits of innovation in our healthcare system.
“Where it took $2 billion to sequence it once in the beginning, we now have devices that we hope can do it for less than a thousand dollars," said Monaco. "Integrating that type of information into healthcare will be a challenge, but I think it would be really useful.”
Leach, a 1978 grad who runs pancreatic cancer research at the Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, touched on the shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act.
“It is an overwhelming process to know where to go, who to see, to coordinate visits between the multiple specialties," Leach said. "I think in part that’s why we haven’t seen the Affordable Care Act change those patterns of behavior because people don’t know any better when they’re sick.”
Joseph Hahn, a 1960 Sallies grad, is the chief of staff for the Cleveland Clinic. He spoke about his work in restructuring healthcare systems in Ohio to make them more efficient and attentive to patient needs.
“Things are changing, people want availability and they want accessibility. And they’re willing to pay for it. And in our state, these visits are covered by the Medicaid for $65 per visit. So drugstores are happy because they’re getting business, patients are getting seen, quality is being monitored. It’s actually taken off.”
It's the second year Salesianum has produced its Breakfast Speaker series in an effort to bring a variety of the nation’s top leaders in range of fields to the school for lively and topical discussions.