Vanessa Maier, MD, MPH, CHEEER Pilot Awardee (Round 2), will be inducted into the Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame at Cleveland Heights-University Heights High School.
Dr. Maier, a 1991 graduate, is strongly connected to her alma mater. In addition to seeing patients in her primary care clinic at MetroHealth Beachwood Health Center, she serves as the Medical Director of the MetroHealth School Health Program and provides care at the Heights Wellness Center in Cleveland Heights-University Heights High School. Dr. Maier, a Family Medicine physician, joined MetroHealth in 2015.
“Humility, grace, the ability to freely give compassion, to see goodness in ourselves and others, to accept and receive unmerited forgiveness – these are hard lessons to learn,” Dr. Maier said. “But my experience at Heights gave me a solid foundation in these lessons, offering the richness of diversity, the power of kindness and the aspiration to follow a path of learning and service. Heights profoundly influenced my journey, and it is an immeasurable honor to be inducted into the Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame.”
Founded in 2013 by Christine Alexander-Rager, MD, and now within the Institute for H.O.P.E., the School Health Program works collaboratively with local school districts to increase access to health services. Through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the program, in collaboration with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District, received nearly $4.5 million to renovate facilities and expand access to services. In 2022, the program received America’s Essential Hospitals prestigious Gage Award in recognition of “creative and successful programs that improve patient care and serve community needs.”
In her role as Medical Director, Dr. Maier provides leadership for the School Health Program and is actively involved in research to understand best practices in school-based health. She currently serves as co-investigator on a Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative of Northern Ohio study to evaluate factors associated with absenteeism in students with asthma.
Dr. Maier also has a strong interest in teaching. She serves as Director of the Advocacy and Public Health Pathway at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and received the prestigious Kaiser Permanente Excellence in Teaching Award in 2023 for inspiring students to lead careers that exemplify medicine’s most enduring values.
The induction ceremony will take place on Thursday, September 26.