Otha Myles, ’98, wife Susie, Florence Goldner and MAA President, Ronald ’65

Some 170 faculty, friends, students, and alumni gathered on February 7th for the second annual Celebrating Diversity Dinner at the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore. The evening highlighted the school’s commitment to diversity and reaffirmed its importance in generating progress in healthcare for under-served communities in addressing the physician shortage.

Joan Reede, MD, of Harvard Medical School served as keynote speaker. She is dean for diversity and community partnership and director of the minority faculty development program at Harvard. Reede leads the development and management of a comprehensive program that provides leadership, guidance, and support to promote the increased recruitment, retention and advancement of under-represented minority faculty at Harvard Medical School. This charge includes oversight of all diversity activities as they relate to faculty, trainees, students and staff. Reede’s outstanding leadership in community outreach and the promotion of diversity in academic medicine made her an ideal candidate to deliver the night’s keynote address.

The event was organized by Maryland’s office of development with the aim of highlighting the importance of diversity scholarships and encouraging donations. The Medical Alumni Association served as presenting sponsor, providing tickets to medical students as well as prospective students. The Association of American Medical Colleges, Associated Black Charities, and ExpressCare Urgent Care Centers also served as sponsors.

In this issue, the Bulletin magazine introduces a new section to aid physicians in their financial planning. Entitled “Physician-Investor Outlook,” the column is prepared by Doug Holthaus, vice president and relationship manager at PNC Wealth Management.

Holthaus’ primary role is to coordinate the resources of PNC Wealth Management with the needs of clients. His role under the Mercantile organization was the sales and marketing of the firm’s retail and institutional investment management products. Prior to joining the Mercantile organization, Holthaus was a vice president of key accounts with Deutsche Asset Management. Before joining Deutsche, Holthaus was with the private client group of the investment bank Friedman, Billings, & Ramsey specializing in executive services and the development of employee stock programs for public companies. He started his career in 1993 with Legg Mason, where he held a variety of positions pertaining to the retail brokerage business.

W hile frustration and pessimism rule the day at the moment, it is worth considering that current valuation is likely to lead to bright days for equity investors in the coming years. We temper this optimism with the knowledge that historically the pain of further declines sometimes has continued past the point of rational calculation because extraneous influences and irrational behavior can buffet prices in the short run. This is precisely why we continue to recommend that investors work with their advisors to select an appropriate asset allocation that retains sufficient so-called “safe” assets—defined as high-quality bond holdings and cash—to provide an appropriate level of assets and cash flow to ride out the volatility in the financial markets while balancing the need to grow real purchasing power in order to reach future financial goals.

Our general recommendation is for a diversified portfolio that contains both high-quality bonds and high-quality, conservatively-financed stocks. Companies with weak balance sheets and less robust business models have a much higher risk to their survival. Investors should focus on companies that should survive a severe economic downturn of indeterminate length and depth from the eventual recovery. Our general recommendation with equities is for an overweight to U.S. large-cap stocks and an underweight to international stocks—we believe that developed international economies may lag the United States coming out of this downturn, and we prefer to reduce foreign-exchange risk as the dollar has been shown to be a safe haven during times of global turmoil.

This Market Update is provided by our friends at PNC Wealth Management. Mr. Holtaus can be reached at 410-237-4590 or douglas.holthaus@pnc.com

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