Puentes de Salud co-founders Steve Larson, MD, associate professor, Emergency Medicine, and Matthew O'Brien MD, MSc, were recently selected for an Emerging Leaders Fund grant from the Claneil Foundation to support Puentes de Salud, a nonprofit free health clinic for Latino immigrants in Philadelphia.
The Emerging Leaders Fund provides founders and leaders of young organizations who show great potential for strong positive impact with $200,000 of unrestricted funding over four years and a peer group of other leaders for guidance. The organization turns to more than 80 sources to pool prospective recipients and then selects up to four annually.
Puentes de Salud was founded on the belief that community health and wellness are not the domain of merely one group or discipline, but rather a collaborative community effort. The organization partners with community leaders, local government, educational, and nonprofit institutions to address the detrimental economic and social attributes impacting the health of South Philadelphia's Latino population. In doing so, Puentes de Salud promotes health and wellness in this population and educates future generations of community advocates, health care providers, educators and leaders by offering opportunities for responsible and respectful community engagement.
"It is a tremendous honor for Puentes de Salud to receive this award from the Claneil Foundation and acknowledges the passion, patience, and perseverance that has defined the dedicated efforts of countless Puentes volunteers to ensure the health and wellness of South Philadelphia's vibrant, yet vulnerable Latino immigrant population," said Larson.
Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.
The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $550 million awarded in the 2022 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts” in medicine, Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries and innovations that have shaped modern medicine, including recent breakthroughs such as CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System’s patient care facilities stretch from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. These include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Lancaster General Health, Penn Medicine Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, Penn Medicine at Home, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.
Penn Medicine is an $11.1 billion enterprise powered by more than 49,000 talented faculty and staff.