CLEVELAND, Ohio — A recent donation to the Cleveland Clinic Nursing Institute will be used to invest in education technology, including state-of-the-art “human patient simulators” — lifelike mannequins that talk, breathe and undergo changes in skin color.
The simulators are “almost eerie,” said Joan Kavanagh, associate chief nursing officer for clinical education and professional development. “Technology is revolutionizing how we can educate nurses.”
The new investment comes as a result of a donation of an undisclosed amount by a former Clinic patient, publishing magnate Stanley Shalom Zielony, of Long Island, New York. As a result of the donation, the Clinic’s nursing institute will be renamed in Zielony’s honor. Zielony made a previous undisclosed donation to the Clinic that was announced in January.
Thanks to Zielony’s most recent gift, the Clinic plans to purchase an undetermined number of untethered human patient simulators. The simulators that the Clinic now uses must be tethered to an air compressor that aids in breathing simulation, which limits their mobility, Kavanagh said.
Proceeds from Zielony’s first donation were used to support tuition and help the Clinic invest in technology that enables real-time learning for nurses at the hospital’s far-flung locations, Kavanagh said.
Zielony is president of New York-based Publications Expediting Inc., a distributor of medical and scientific journals. He found financial success in the late 1960s by distributing journals via air travel instead of ground transportation, according to an article in Cleveland Clinic Magazine’s Summer 2009 issue.
Zielony has made tens of thousands of dollars in political donations to Republican recipients, including $12,000 to the Republican National Committee between 1992 and 2000, according to Watchdog.net. The website doesn’t list any political donations from Zielony since 2000.
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He’s also been a major donor to an Israeli science and technology university, the Technion-Israel Institute in Haifa. Federal tax records show that Zielony’s charitable foundation made $900,000 in donations to the university’s American fundraising arm, which was the only recipient of donations from the foundation in its fiscal year ending in August 2008. The university declared March 18, 2009, to be “Zielony Day” and has named a number of projects after Zielony, including a graduate student dormitory and a student union.
In the magazine article, Zielony discussed the reason for his altruism. “The philosophy behind my philanthropy is quite simple,” he said. “I came to the United States as a poor immigrant with little formal education. This country afforded me an opportunity to succeed beyond anything I could have imagined. I am hopeful that my support of the Center for Nursing Education and other educational programs will create similar opportunities for others.”
Sarah Sinclair, executive nursing officer at the Clinic, said, “Many people have causes that they support, but I must tell you that in my career I have never known anyone who supports nursing excellence and education for nursing like Stanley Zielony.”
