ANN ARBOR, MI - The University of Michigan Health System gave Charity Riddle a chance to walk again after parts of all four of her limbs were amputated. Health System doctors fixed the hearts of Cora Gillespie and Matthew Jackson. And its teams of experts allowed Michelle Stearns to hear and Kennedy Connolly see the world more clearly.

These are some of the everyday heroes featured in a new UMHS advertising campaign that is being unveiled to Health System employees Aug. 29 and will be shown on television for the first time during the Sept. 3 U-M football game.

The print, radio and television advertisements are kicking off a three-year marketing campaign to raise awareness of the high level of research, patient care and education that occur throughout the Health System. The campaign also supports the University-wide $2.5-billion Michigan Difference fund-raising effort.

“This campaign will reinforce the University of Michigan Health System's position as a premier medical institution: as a place where new medical knowledge and innovative technologies are realized; where the best new ways of providing patient care are developed; where the medical leaders of the next generation are trained; and where patients can receive comprehensive and collaborative care,” says Robert P. Kelch, M.D., executive vice president for medical affairs at U-M and CEO of the Health System.

The 24 participants in the campaign were chosen as representatives of the Health System's numerous strengths. The Health System set out to find the best examples of the its capabilities and the most illustrative patient stories by requesting stories and experiences from all departments.

“What is so unique and wonderful about the Michigan Difference campaign is that it tells the real stories of patients and families, and faculty and staff,” Kelch says. “Stories of courage and dedication. Of will and spirit. Of realities and miracles. Everything that victors – that real, everyday heroes - are made of.”

Patients in the campaign include residents of Ann Arbor, the Metro Detroit area, and other parts of the state.

Some of the people featured in the ads include:

• Charity Riddle of Monroe, who had parts of four limbs amputated after contracting meningitis. At the Health System's Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, she has re-learned to do things she once thought impossible: vacuuming, applying makeup, driving a car – and she even hopes to teach aerobics again.
• Mark Orringer, M.D., professor and head of the Section of Thoracic Surgery in the Department of Surgery, an innovator in surgical treatments of diseases of the esophagus that are much less invasive than earlier treatments. He also is a specialist in the treatments of lung surgery and chest wall tumors.
• Cora Gillespie, 46, of Detroit , whose heart condition caused her to pass out if she ever over-exerted herself. Doctors at the U-M Cardiovascular Center discovered that an unusually large portion of heart muscle blocked the blood flow from the right side of the heart into the lungs, and there was a hole in her heart. After surgery, she now says she has the energy of a “bionic woman.”
• Matthew Jackson, a 4-year-old from Canton, who was treated by the Department of Pediatrics' Division of Cardiology at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital for aortic stenosis, a congenital heart defect that obstructs blood flow from the heart to the body due to a narrowing of the aortic valve. He's now happy and healthy, and he appears in an advertisement sitting in a bathtub, with his hair in a soapy spike and bright green goggles over his eyes.
• Robert Bartlett, M.D., a recently retired professor of surgery, director of critical care and head of the extracorporeal life support team, who developed the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation ( ECMO), a machine that is saving the lives of newborns and adults with severe respiratory failure by supporting their impaired respiratory function.
• Jack Lousma, 69, a former astronaut who has had successful treatment for prostate cancer at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center and Department of Urology.

A three-day celebration of the new campaign intended for Health System employees also includes artwork that professional LEGO sculptor Nathan Sawaya will build Wednesday, Aug. 31. Sawaya's works will include portraits of some of the people featured in the ads.

The funds raised for the Health System will support a variety of needs, including the construction of the children's and women's replacement hospital, a Depression Center, a Cardiovascular Center, and an addition to the Kellogg Eye Center; scholarships for medical students and support for residents; and support of research and new programs including aging, basic science research, biotechnology, cancer, cardiovascular sciences, depression, genetics, integrative medicine, maternal and child health, nanotechnology ophthalmology, technology transfer, translational research, and women's health.

The Health System's goal is to raise $550 million. The rollout of the campaign will begin in southeastern Michigan, followed by west Michigan.

For more information about the fund-raising advertising campaign, visit www.michigandifference.org. For more about the U-M Office of Medical Development & Alumni Relations, go to www.medicineatmichigan.org/.

Written by Katie Gazella

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