Herman & Olive Pascarella Lectureship on the Treatment of Heart Diseases

My Enormous Thanks to Dr. Garry and Mrs. Sarah Sklar

It was my honor and pleasure to accept a gift to SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University from Dr. Garry and Mrs. Sarah Sklar to establish a lectureship in memory of Herman and Olive Pascarella. The lectures will focus on the treatment of heart diseases.

The lectureship complements an earlier gift Dr. Sklar presented to the Medical Center that established the Professorship in Cardiothoracic Surgery. Daniel L. Beckles, M.D., PhD, was named the first Herman & Olive Pascarella Professor in Cardiothoracic Surgery.

Dr. Sklar's generosity and commitment to the Medical Center began with his initial gift of $1,000,000 to endow The Garry S. and Sarah Sklar Professorship in Anesthesiology, which was held by James E. Cottrell, M.D., Chairman and Distinguished Service Professor of the Department of Anesthesiology.

Dr. Sklar received acclaim for a groundbreaking idea following his 1981 publication in Anesthesia and Analgesia, a leading anesthesia journal, that presented evidence related to the power of positive suggestion – specifically, that encouragement to have pleasant dreams could reduce the frequency of nightmares experienced by 12-36% of patients anesthetized with ketamine. Other researchers have conducted more contemporary studies that have led to the recent acknowledgement of Dr. Sklar's hypothesis.

I am exceptionally grateful to the Sklars for their thoughtful gifts and contributions to support excellence at Downstate.

Wayne J. Riley, M.D., MPH, MBA, MACP