LEON HALEY NAMED CEO OF
UF HEALTH JACKSONVILLE
Leon L. Haley Jr., MD, MHSA, CPE, FACEP, was named
chief executive officer of UF Health Jacksonville in
September. The appointment came less than a year
after Haley was named dean of the University of Florida
College of Medicine – Jacksonville, a position he will
continue to hold. Haley officially assumed his new joint
role Jan. 1. During his tenure as dean of the medical
school, Haley has been a part of many positive changes,
including the opening and staffing of the new inpatient
unit at UF Health North, a 92-bed
facility that is part of a
state-of-the-art medical
complex in North Jacksonville.
“It hasn’t taken me long to
realize what a special place
UF Health Jacksonville is,
and I am excited to lead
the hospital and the
medical school,”
Haley said.
GAINESVILLE GROUP KEEPS A DREAM ALIVE
‘RESEARCH MEANS HOPE’
On a blue sheet of paper featuring hand-drawn pastel balloons soaring through the clouds,
a 12-year-old girl writes in neat cursive lettering. The note describes the young person’s
aspirations for the future, written one week before she passed away from cancer.
Bonnie Freeman’s letter, dated July 3, 1983, explained the mission of Stop
Children’s Cancer, a Gainesville nonprofit that seeks to prevent, control and
cure cancer in children. Thirty-four years later, Stop Children’s Cancer works
closely with researchers at UF Health to advance the cure rate of pediatric
cancers through clinical trials.
Howard Freeman says his organization, which he founded with his wife,
Laurel, and their daughters, Carolyne and Bonnie, is driven by Bonnie’s
desire to help other families dealing with the trauma of a pediatric
cancer diagnosis.
“I’ll never forget the day I drove to Bonnie’s pediatrician to hear
that she may have leukemia. From that point on, my family’s lives
were changed,” Freeman says. “Two to three weeks after she was
diagnosed, Bonnie came to us and said, ‘Why don’t we raise
money to help other kids and their families, so they don’t have
to go through what we’re going through right now?’ For the
next two years, Bonnie led her life with so much courage and
enthusiasm. We know we can’t bring Bonnie back, but every
child that is helped — we call them our Stop Children’s Cancer
angels — makes us feel good about what we’re doing.”
In 2017, Stop Children’s Cancer donated $1 million to the
UF College of Medicine. The gift ensures the longevity of the
Bonnie R. Freeman Clinical Trials Fund, established in 2011 by a
gift of $1.05 million. Over the last four decades, the Freemans’
organization has helped provide more than $7 million in funding
for pediatric cancer research at the UF College of Medicine. The
most recent gift will continue to fund the assistant directorship of
clinical research at the UF Pediatric Oncology Clinical Trials Office,
held by Giselle Moore-Higgs, PhD, as well as support the UF Pediatric Sarcoma
Center and the center’s development of clinical trials to treat bone cancers like
osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma.
William Slayton, MD ’92, division chief for pediatric hematology and oncology
at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital, says funding from Stop Children's
Cancer creates ripple effects, ultimately leading to improvements in cure rates
for several pediatric cancers.
“Stop Children’s Cancer has allowed us to attract leaders from across the
nation to join our pediatric clinical trials program. We’ve doubled the number of
physicians in the office from five to 10. That support catalyzed the improvement
in our division,” he says. “These trials have had a major impact on the cure rate
for children with acute lymphocytic leukemia, or ALL, neuroblastoma and Wilm’s
tumors. The survival rate for ALL, which Bonnie had, was 67 percent in 1980.
Now it’s close to 90 percent.”
Scott Rivkees, MD, chair of the UF College of Medicine department of
pediatrics, says clinical trials — research studies and experiments that
test a treatment’s safety and effectiveness — lead to important
translatable findings.
“Research means hope, and research is incredibly expensive,” Rivkees
says. “The amount of funding we receive through the National Institutes of
Health is not enough for us to tackle serious illnesses like pediatric cancer. If
not for the support of groups like Stop Children’s Cancer, we wouldn’t have the
resources to dream up and test new ideas.”
Slayton calls the Freeman family’s work with Stop Children’s Cancer an
inspiring community effort.
“Their work is so vibrant and energetic,” he says. “It shows what an incredible
legacy Bonnie’s idea and her family’s work has provided to her community.”
DOCTOR GATOR | 3
By TYLER FRANCISCHINE
By Michelle Koidin Jaffee
Barbara Sperrazza was a dietitian and diabetes
educator who had the warmest smile and loved to
help people. She lost her ability to read, write, speak
and eventually swallow due to frontotemporal
dementia, a progressive degenerative brain disease
that strikes in the prime of life, typically between
ages 45 and 60.
Now, her husband and his brothers and sisters
at the Fraternal Order of Eagles of Gainesville are
fighting for a cure. They’ve donated $50,000 to UF’s
Barbara’s Dream Fund for Frontotemporal Dementia.
“This is the largest fundraiser we’ve had to date,
and we’ll continue to do it,” said her husband,
Charles Sperrazza.
A Gainesville financial adviser, he helped found
the local chapter of the Eagles in 1996. Over the
years, the group has made the Evelyn F. and William
L. McKnight Brain Institute of UF a top beneficiary
of its charitable fundraising, with a focus on raising
money for research in the areas of Parkinson’s
disease and Alzheimer’s disease. More recently, they
expanded their focus to include supporting research
to find a cure for frontotemporal dementia, known
as FTD.
Barbara Sperrazza developed FTD at age 56 and
died at age 64 in 2016.
FTD is the second-most-frequent form of earlyonset
dementia, after Alzheimer’s disease. It results
from progressive nerve cell loss in the frontal and
anterior temporal lobes.
“I decided,” Sperrazza said, “I couldn’t do anything
more for her than the doctors could, so we started
thi s fund for her.”
Visit uff.ufl.edu/019659 to learn more about
Barbara’s Dream Fund for Frontotemporal Dementia
or to make a donation.
Leon L. Haley Jr., MD
/019659