As president and CEO of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, Claire Pomeroy, M.D., M.B.A., strives toward improving public health by accelerating support for medical research. Dr. Pomeroy, who is NEOMED’s 2017 Commencement speaker, has spoken previously of the personal story that shaped her life’s work.
In 2012, Dr. Pomeroy gave a widely viewed TEDtalk on the social determinants of health that still resonates nearly five years later. In her powerful speech at the University of California-Davis, Dr. Pomeroy describes her journey of fleeing to the streets as a child to avoid her abuser and progressing through the foster care system before eventually earning a medical degree from the University of Michigan. With a mix of personal anecdotes and statistics, Dr. Pomeroy explains how we can work together to fix a broken health care system to create a more compassionate approach where everyone can receive the care they need through the values of acceptance, encouragement and love.
NEOMED Commencement will be held at 10 a.m. May 20, 2017 at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron.