Investing in the Future of Parkinson’ s Research and Care
As the need for clinican-researchers who specialize in Parkinson’ s treatment continues to increase, the Edmond J. Safra Foundation and The Michael J. Fox Foundation are making continued significant and long-term investments into training the next generation of movement disorder specialists.
Thanks to the Edmond J. Safra Foundation’ s expanded and generous support, the Edmond J. Safra Movement Disorder Fellowship is set to continue educating clinicianresearchers through 2031. The program graduated its first class of five new movement disorder clinician-researchers in 2018; as a result of this continued partnership, the program will, by 2031, produce a total of 103 movement disorder specialists trained to reach approximately 78,780 more people living with Parkinson’ s disease around the world, for a total of 82,400 patients served.
“ Next year, we are expanding funding to 10 centers,” Michael J. Fox Foundation CEO and co-founder Deborah W. Brooks told Forbes in an article that shined a spotlight on the Fellowship.“ We’ ve essentially doubled the program over the course of 10 years. This is building the network and the next generation of specialists, expanding educational and research collaboration opportunities.”
Today, the Fellowship includes 41 centers in 13 countries, demonstrating the program’ s global footprint.“ Our expanding network is an opportunity to continue widening the global footprint of this program, which— in turn— reaches even more people and families with Parkinson’ s around the world, said Rachel Dolhun, MD, DipABLM, a movement disorder specialist and principal medical advisor at The Michael J. Fox Foundation, as well as leader of the Fellowship since its inception.“ Parkinson’ s is complex, and specialist care can improve patient outcomes in so many different ways.”
Impact of the Edmond J. Safra Movement Disorder Fellowship
The Edmond J. Safra Movement Disorder Fellowship has graduated 48 Fellows, with 17 Fellows more currently in training. This training has taken place with 64 Fellowship Directors, and 41 Fellowship Centers across 13 countries and 14 US states. These Fellows are clinician-researchers, not only expanding access to care, but leading the future of Parkinson’ s research— directly informed by their patients and delivered back to those patients as advances in care.
04 The Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders