Frederick C. Binter Center for Neurosciences Established At Fletcher Allen with $2 Million Gift

The Frederick C. Binter Center for Neurosciences is a new, multidisciplinary center of excellence at Fletcher Allen, made possible by a $2 million donation from neurosurgeon Nancy Binter, M.D., and her husband Bela Ratkovits, M.D. The neurosciences center is named in honor of Dr. Binter's father, Frederick C. Binter, who passed away in 1996 at age 79. Frederick Binter was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in his early 60s.

A multidisciplinary center brings together health care professionals from different medical specialties to share expertise, centered around the needs of the patient. The ultimate goal is to provide all of the care a patient needs as conveniently and seamlessly as possible, ideally within a single visit.

"While it is my job as my father's daughter to honor his memory every day I work, it is our collective job, as an institution, to help people like my father spend one more day outside of a nursing home," said Dr. Binter, a member of the recently created Fletcher Allen Health Care Foundation. "If we can achieve that, then the donation, $2 million, was well spent."

"I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Dr. Binter for this generous gift," said Melinda L. Estes, M.D., president and chief executive officer at Fletcher Allen. "This gift will allow us to further the advancement of neurological care at this institution, in our state, and in our region; it will also help us achieve our vision of becoming a national model for the delivery of high-quality academic health care for a rural region."

The goal of this center is to ensure that patients with a range of neurological disorders such as stroke, movement disorders, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and neurodegenerative diseases are able to obtain the treatment they need to stay active.

The center will feature a series of multidisciplinary, disease-related neurosciences clinics. The first of these clinics is our Multidisciplinary Stroke Center.