On March 23, UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., sent this message to the UNMC community:
In this time of state and national emergency, I want to take just a moment to thank each of you for your support of the Med Center. It’s thanks to all of Nebraska that at this transformational moment in history, our state has an academic medical center uniquely suited to the challenges we now face.
The Med Center is a family. It’s a family of students and faculty and staff, it’s a family of a community that we embrace every day, and that embraces us. It’s a family of donors and philanthropists, foundations and businesses that work together to create an incredibly high quality of life that makes it even better for our children and for our grandchildren. We here at the University of Nebraska Medical Center are completely committed to that. That commitment that’s embodied in our mission, that’s expressed in our values doesn’t change. All that changes is the way we deliver that commitment.
Our faculty and our staff and the entire community are committed to the success of our mission, to our goals around education, to our goals around discovery, creative activity and research, and of course, to the community engagement that embodies what it means to be a world-class academic medical center, here in Omaha.
I also fully understand that we are very highly engaged on the federal, regional and local aspects of health security and how that interacts with the global community. But I can tell you this: the leadership of our med center are among the most knowledgeable and dedicated individuals and continually are open and transparent in sharing information day by day, week by week basis.
My best advice to you right now is to connect — use your technology. Make sure you connect with your family and loved ones. Make sure you connect with your faculty and staff, and stay connected and support each other. To take care — take care of yourself, take care of your loved ones, and to make sure we are watching each other’s back all the time, and I mean that in the best possible sense of being sure that if there are unmet needs, and not everybody in the community has the same resources that many of us have, that we are always asking what we can we do to pay it forward for others. And finally, when and if you need some help, if you need somebody to talk to or if you have questions, reach out. Everybody is here to answer those questions and to be supportive.
As sure as I am of the commitment and the dedication to excellence, I am equally sure that not every decision is going to be perfect. We’re going to do our very best to make them as good as possible, and when we need to fix them, correct them, adjust them, strengthen them, we will do that as well.
It’s difficult for me to express how proud I am of all of our faculty and staff and how responsive and thoughtful and giving our students and their families have been. And I am not alone as this work has not gone unrecognized by others, many others. Several national media outlets have let the world know that in this time of crisis, Nebraska stands tall.
If you have not seen these stories, I invite you to take a look at a few:
- CNN – Coronavirus Town Hall
- CNN – She’s on the front lines of coronavirus testing
- Fox News – On frontline of coronavirus fight
- Esquire: Inside the National Quarantine Center, There is No Fear of Coronavirus
- Omaha.com – A look inside the Nebraska biocontainment unit
- ABC News – What it’s like inside Nebraska hospital where coronavirus patients are treated
- The New York Times – A Nebraska hospital aimed to contain the virus. But it had already spread
- CBS “60 Minutes – In Clinical Trials and Laboratories, the Hunt Is On to Find Vaccines and Drugs to Treat, Prevent Novel Coronavirus
We will need continue to “lean in.” We don’t know what the days ahead will hold. But there is no better team than the one here in Nebraska, at the Med Center. Thank you for your support.
Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D.
Chancellor
University of Nebraska Medical Center