Michael P. Sherman, M.D., F.A.A.P.
Professor of Child Health, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
Professor Emeritus [Pediatrics], University of California, Davis

Professor Sherman has been associated with the Children’s Medical Care Foundation (CMCF) for 28 years and continues to be an educator, a research collaborator, and a patron of CMCF.  Professor Sherman has a strong commitment to improving the health of Eastern European infants and children.  The time has come for CMCF to help infants and children to have better lives as adults in countries beyond Poland.

Fellow Education and Research Collaborations

Professor Sherman is most proud of being the first mentor to Janusz Gadzinowski, MD, PhD in the Neonatal intensive Care Unit at the UCLA Medical Center.  Professor Gadzinowski currently directs an outstanding neonatal intensive care unit at the Poznan University of Medical Sciences.  Professor Gadzinowski is internationally known for excellence in neonatal care and research.  In 1986, Professors Joan Hodgman and Michael Sherman were the first USC and UCLA Professors, respectively, to attend the first neonatology symposium in Poznan, Poland.

Attending that same symposium was Ryszard Lauterbach MD, PhD. Professor Sherman has been a friend and research collaborator with Professor Lauterbach since he was a CMCF fellow at UCLA in 1990.  Professor Lauterbach now leads the neonatal intensive care unit at Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow, Poland.  Professor Lauterbach also spent time with Professor Sherman at the University of California, Davis.  Because of his exposure to neonatal medicine in the USA, Professor Lauterbach has changed pediatric care practices in Krakow, Poland and beyond.  His innovative advances in neonatology have improved care and reduced neonatal mortality.

Other conference participants at the 1986 Neonatal Symposium in Poznan included Professor Jerzy Szczapa, MD, PhD, who most recently served for two years as the President of the Polish Society of Neonatologists.  His son, Tomasz Szczapa, MD, PhD, helps educate Polish physicians about neonatal resuscitation.  This educational activity reduces neonatal brain injuries and cerebral palsy.  Moreover, Tomasz Szczapa and Michael Sherman recently gave a presentation at the 2014 Pediatric Academic Societies meeting In Vancouver, British Columbia.  The research collaboration looked at the origins of necrotizing enterocolitis, a deadly bowel disease of premature infants.

Also attending the 1986 conference was Professor Maria Kornacka, MD, PhD.  Professor Kornacka is now the Director at the Neonatal Department at the Medical University of Warsaw.  Recently, Professors Kornacka and Sherman have exchanged emails related to publications of research from the Medical University of Warsaw.  The quality of the biomedical research related to newborn care that is forthcoming from the Medical University of Warsaw is first rate.

In addition to hosting fellows who were educated at UCLA Medical Center and the University of California, Davis, another CMCF fellow of Professor Sherman at UCLA was Doctor Janusz Bursa, who did important work on birth defects, infant morbidity, and mortality in the Upper Silesian Industrial Region of Poland as indices of ecological disaster.  At major academic centers throughout Poland, Professor Sherman has given lectures on “State of the Art” topics.  Among the most notable were lectures in Wroclaw at the invitation of Professor Elisabeth Gajewska.

Professor Sherman considers it an honor to be a member of the Board of Directors of the CMCF.  Professor Sherman is a neonatologist whose research helps diagnose, treat and prevent infections in preterm infants.  Professor Sherman owes a debt of gratitude to Doctor Stefan Wilk and his wife Wanda.  Doctor Wilk challenged Professor Sherman to improve significantly the lives of Polish infants.  Bjoern Martinoff, the current CMCF President, has taken the desires of Doctor Wilk and carried the gift of medical education to a new level in other countries beyond Poland.  The children in these countries have the same significant health care needs observed in Poland during the early 1980s.  The Board of Directors of CMCF and the many volunteers who have worked tirelessly to educate young physician have to know the magnitude of good they are doing for infants and children in less fortunate environments than here in the USA.  These contributors to the health of children need to be very proud.  They have created a future.  Whether the pathway is volunteerism or assistance with monetary donations, I encourage more people to step forward and support to make this humanitarian effort of the CMCF an even greater success in Eastern European countries