FACULTY SUPPORT

Rewarding Quality

A retired surgeon from Stowe, Vermont, and his wife, a retired registered nurse, were so impressed by the quality of the education and training of surgical residents at the College of Medicine that they are now among its major benefactors.

Dr. Samuel Labow and his wife Michelle have given and pledged some $5 million to the Department of Surgery during The Campaign for the University of Vermont. Their initial gift funded the Samuel B. and Michelle D. Labow Green & Gold Professorship in Colon & Rectal Surgery and the Samuel B. and Michelle D. Labow Lectureship in Colon & Rectal Surgery.

Neil Hyman, MD'84, Professor of Surgery and Chief of General Surgery, was named the first Samuel B. and Michelle D. Labow Green & Gold Professor in Colon & Rectal Surgery. Dr. Hyman, a resident of South Burlington, earned his medical degree from the College of Medicine in 1984 and completed a surgical internship and residency at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, followed by a colon and rectal surgical fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Since joining the UVM faculty in 1990, he has earned eight teaching awards.

"Sam often talks about giving back to the specialty," says Dr. Hyman. "With this gift, the Labows have made it a certainty that Vermonters will have access in perpetuity to the highest quality of care for colorectal disease. Funds will always be available to ensure that UVM has a first-rate clinical, teaching, and research program in the field to which Sam Labow has dedicated his professional life. It is truly an awesome and awe inspiring legacy."

Dr. Labow spent his distinguished career as a busy colorectal surgeon in New York. He held numerous key positions in the surgical community and ultimately served as president of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons.

"Following my retirement from surgery and move to Stowe, I began attending surgical conferences and became involved with teaching UVM medical students at the invitation of Dr. Hyman," said Dr. Labow, who also is a Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery at the UVM College of Medicine. "I was immediately impressed by the superb quality of the education and training of surgical residents under the leadership of Dr. Shackford. Since then, I have become more and more impressed with the quality of the surgical department, which led Michelle and me to devote our resources here."

Dr. Steven R. Shackford is Professor of Surgery and chaired the Department of Surgery when the Labows began their giving. "It is especially meaningful that Sam and Michelle Labow, who are familiar with so many programs around the country, chose to focus their philanthropy here at UVM," he said. "They have a strong belief in our missions of education, research, care, and community, and working with them has been inspiring."

Since their initial gifts, the Labows have also endowed the Shackford-Labow Lectureship in Quality, created to honor Dr. Shackford as he prepared to step down from his tenure as chair of the Department of Surgery.