Philanthropy

Our practice donates a portion of every surgical fee to philanthropic activities. Our areas of focus are medical research and education.

Medical Research

Joan's Legacy, subsequently renamed Uniting Against Lung Cancer, was created by Dr. Hidalgo's family in 2001. It became the largest private foundation funding lung cancer research in the United States, having funded $11.5 million in research grants, with another $57 million in follow-on funding earned by its grantees. In 2015 it merged with a similar organization to become the Lung Cancer Research Foundation.

Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death, claiming 450 lives every day. Our organization focuses on nonsmoking related lung cancer. Breakthroughs in genome mapping are accelerating research progress and already yielding effective new treatment options. Dr. Hidalgo serves on the board of the Lung Cancer Research Foundation and the practice co-funds a $100,000 research grant each year. For more information please visit our website at www.lungcancerresearchfoundation.org.

Georgetown Medical School, Integrated Learning Center

A major contribution was made to help finance a new state-of-the-art learning center for medical students. This facility allows medical students to learn the correct way to take a history, perform a physical examination, and develop bedside manner. This is done under the watchful eye of instructors and other students who view the process remotely by video camera. Professional actors serve as patients to provide an accurate and reproducible model of various disease entities for the students. This type of learning center is unique in medical education today.

Education

Our practice contributes to funding the complete tuition for three honors students every year at Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx. The practice also supports the Inner City Scholarship Fund, which underwrites tuition for elementary and high school students in the New York Archdiocese parochial schools.

The Arts

Our practice also contributes to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has funded a new drawing classroom for the Department of Fine Arts at Georgetown University. The latter has allowed new course offerings by the department.