$5 Million Eberly Gift Boosts Medical Research And Education

12-11-97
University Park, Pa.- The Eberly Family Foundation of Uniontown has donated $5 million to Penn State's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center to promote medical research and support a new method of surgical training.

Foundation President Robert E. Eberly said $4 million will create a fund to speed the transformation of promising research concepts into actual patient treatment programs. The remaining $1 million will support the Virtual Hospital-unique to the Medical Center-where computer technology and virtual reality allow medical students and residents to simulate surgery without risk to human life.

Robert Eberly, chairman of Eberly and Meade, a natural gas production company, is a 1939 Penn State graduate. He and his wife, Elouise, along with his sisters, Carolyn Eberly Blaney and Margaret Eberly George, are longtime benefactors of Penn State programs in the sciences and health care.

"This most recent act of generosity from the Eberlys comes at a critical time for medical research," said University President Graham Spanier. "Nationally, there is an unprecedented need to increase the effectiveness of medical care, and at the same time, to hold down the cost of that care. This gift addresses both of those challenges. It will ultimately improve the quality of life for countless thousands of people. The Eberly family's vision and selflessness is truly inspiring, and we are deeply grateful."

C. McCollister Evarts, Penn State's senior vice president for health affairs and dean of the College of Medicine, said the new Eberly Medical Research Innovation Fund would place a high priority on an interdisciplinary approach to path-breaking research.

"This research will combine the expertise of our clinical and basic scientists and focus it on the development of successful treatment programs for some of today's most pressing health concerns," he said.

He noted that the Eberly fund has exceptional potential to advance research and treatment in such areas as neuroscience, cardiovascular medicine, cancer, diabetes, obesity and metabolic disorders.

"The Medical Center is already conducting significant interdisciplinary research in these fields that has won national recognition," Evarts said. "However, we want to try additional avenues of approach. We will use the Eberly fund to provide start-up grants to boost new and innovative programs that offer great promise, but have not yet established themselves to the point of attracting support from traditional government and foundation sources."

In the Virtual Hospital, which has been under development in the College of Medicine since 1993, training surgeons practice procedures intensively until they acquire a high degree of skill, without risk to patients. Using sophisticated hardware and specially designed software, the surgeon dons a headset through which he or she can see and manipulate images. A force field tracks the surgeon's hands and provides a realistic sense of touch. Another component, the Human Patient Simulator, reproduces more than 80 physiological events, ranging from labored breathing to decreased heart rate, and enables students to practice on a "real" body.

"In conventional training, a surgeon achieves expertise only after assisting and personally conducting dozens of operations on real patients," said Dr. Evarts. "The Virtual Hospital helps to make that method of training obsolete."

The College of Medicine graduates about 110 physicians annually, and all of them are expected to use the Virtual Hospital.

"We are excited by the fine work being done at the Hershey Medical Center, and we are confident that our support will be used to benefit humanity in ways that we cannot even envision now," said Robert Eberly. "We are also pleased to be a part of the tradition of philanthropy that has made the Medical Center a point of pride for all Pennsylvanians."

The Milton S. Hershey Trust and Foundation gave Penn State $50 million to establish the Medical Center in 1963. The Eberlys' gift is the second-largest in the Medical Center's history.

Robert and Elouise Eberly, and the Eberly Family Foundation, each gave $100,000 to the Medical Center in 1992 as part of a successful campaign to raise $10 million for a biomedical research building. In 1994, the Robert E. Eberly Foundation endowed a professorship in nursing at Penn State Fayette campus.

The Eberly family has also made donations to help build the Paterno Library addition and the Bryce Jordan Center at University Park campus, endow scholarships for Penn State Fayette Campus students, and develop the recently dedicated Hobby-Eberly Telescope, a joint Penn State-University of Texas venture.

The family's largest gift to Penn State came in 1987 in the form of a $10 million commitment to support science education and research. Eight faculty chairs were established, each with million-dollar endowments. The remainder of the gift was evenly divided between creating endowments to support science education at the Fayette campus and biotechnology research and development. To recognize the Eberlys' generosity, the University's Board of Trustees named the Eberly College of Science in 1990-the first Penn State academic unit to bear the name of a private benefactor.

The gift also came during The Campaign for Penn State, the University's first major capital campaign. Robert Eberly served as treasurer of that effort, which raised $352 million in gifts for academic purposes between 1984 and 1990. Eberly currently serves as an honorary chair of the University's forthcoming capital campaign.

Robert Eberly earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1939 and eventually joined his father, Orville Eberly, in their Uniontown-based oil and gas exploration business, which later became Eberly and Meade. The family was instrumental in marshaling community support that led to the founding of the Fayette campus in 1965. Robert Eberly also engaged in banking and retired as chairman of Gallatin National Bank in 1990. Penn State in 1972 named him a Distinguished Alumnus, the highest award it can bestow on its graduates.

Carolyn Eberly Blaney and Margaret Eberly George also are active in philanthropic affairs throughout southwestern Pennsylvania, especially in the realm of education.

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Contacts: Mike Bezilla (814) 863-4512 (office) (814) 238-5842 (home) mxb13@psu.edu