When I first met Dr. Monica Crane eight years ago, I asked why she went into geriatrics, and she responded with her kind smile, “because of my grandparents.” Since then, she left the UT Medical Center to start Genesis Neuroscience Clinic so she could serve more geriatric patients. When I recently saw the clinic reach a fundraising goal of $100,000, I reached out to get the details, and the story only confirms the character of the doctor we have come to know over the past years.
The fundraising committee for Genesis Neuroscience Clinic has three goals: patient care, internship program and geriatric providers.
To provide for patient care, the donations help scholarship applicants cover medications, copays, imaging and any other costs that may come up for them to receive comprehensive dementia care.
Currently, the clinic has an internship program that is providing clinical hours, but many students have a job and cannot afford to get clinical hours for free which is how it normally works. The donations aim to solve this problem by eventually transferring the internship program to a paid program once it is fully funded. As of now, 11 of 33 interns are paid through the program.
There are only two dementia clinics in Knoxville, and Genesis Neuroscience serves not only East Tennessee but also many surrounding states with a few patients who travel great distances coming from California, Alaska and even Portugal. To ensure everyone gets timely care, Dr. Crane wants to bring another geriatrician to Knoxville. To do this, the foundation Tennessee Memory Disorders is working to create a loan-forgiveness program. The goal is to recruit two geriatricians on a 4-year contract in exchange for repaying their student loans.
To achieve these goals, the fundraising goal was set to $100,000 for 2023. After an incredibly generous anonymous donation of $20,000, they met the goal a couple of weeks ago. Instead of resting the fundraising efforts, they decided to double the goal to $200,000, with the hopes of reaching the new goal by the end of the year! This way, they can continue funding patient care to those who need it, transferring interns to the paid internship program, and continuing to build the loan forgiveness fund to bring two more physicians to Knoxville and the clinic.
For more information: Genesis Donate
All of us have a story and I want to tell yours! Send them to susan@knoxtntoday.com