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Contact:
Vicki Ritterband
The Kenneth B. Schwartz Center
617-795-0180


Chief of New Yale Cancer Hospital Appointed Board Chair of Kenneth B. Schwartz Center

Boston – The Kenneth B. Schwartz Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the relationship between patients and caregivers, has appointed Thomas J. Lynch, MD, the chairman of its board of directors.

Dr. Lynch, the director of Yale Cancer Center and physician-in-chief of the soon-to-be-opened Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven, is one of the founders of the Schwartz Center and was Kenneth Schwartz’s oncologist. Schwartz, a healthcare attorney, outlined his vision for the Schwartz Center before he died of lung cancer in 1995. Dr. Lynch and a group of Schwartz’s friends and family members built the Schwartz Center using that vision as a blueprint.

“Tom is dynamic, brilliant and passionate, and is driven by the belief that a superb healthcare system is one that delivers not only top-notch care, but compassionate care,” said Julie Rosen, executive director of the Schwartz Center. “With Tom as board chairman, it promises to be an exciting and very productive two years.”

“The Schwartz Center is doing very important and influential work in the area of compassionate health care and it’s a tremendous honor to assume the position of board chair,” said Dr. Lynch. “I imagine that Ken would be incredibly proud of the organization that has grown out of his vision. My relationship with Ken is, and will continue to be, an essential touchstone for everything I do with the Schwartz Center.”

Before assuming his current position at Yale Cancer Center and the Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven, Dr. Lynch was the chief of hematology/oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. He is an expert in lung cancer.

About the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center
The Kenneth B. Schwartz Center is an autonomous, nonprofit organization with a mission to support and advance compassionate health care in which caregivers, patients and their families relate to one another in a way that provides hope to the patient, support to caregivers, and sustenance to the healing process. The Center’s most successful and fastest growing program, the Schwartz Center Rounds, are held at 170 sites in 30 states.