Written by Dr. Romeen Lavani, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Saint Anthony Hospital

I could not be more excited about the City of Chicago recently approving Saint Anthony Hospital’s move to Focal Point Community Campus–a new campus development in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. More than 10 years in the making, the new campus will expand the social and medical care we provide to residents on Chicago’s Southwest Side. As the first-ever financially sustainable campus, FPCC will establish a continuous flow of funds redistributed into community organizations and programs.

For more than a century, Saint Anthony Hospital has been a pillar of our community. As a long-time neighbor of the city’s west and southwest sides, we have worked to foster a healthy community through world-class medical care, social services, and outreach in neighborhoods from North Lawndale and Austin to Little Village, Brighton Park and suburban Cicero.

The campus will also serve as a training location for future medical professionals. Our partnership with AMOpportunities enables our team to continue hosting a diverse pool of medical trainees, and the Focal Point campus will allow those trainees to more easily access places to stay and interact even more closely with the community and populations to whom they provide care. It’s our belief that FPCC will provide a better learning experience for these future doctors, which in turn will make them more likely to return to practice here and serve this community once they’ve become licensed physicians.

The new Saint Anthony Hospital will be the healthcare anchor for the 30-acre, mixed-use campus that will provide resources in early childhood development, affordable housing, education, health and wellness, and workforce development to more than 440,000 people who call Chicago’s Southwest Side home.

We are excited to be able to move this project from its conceptual stages and be able to build the foundation for healthy communities in underserved neighborhoods of the city. In the words of Guy A. Medaglia, President and Chief Executive Officer of Saint Anthony Hospital, “This new campus is going to help take health and wellness to the next level for the communities we serve.”

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About Romeen Lavani, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Saint Anthony Hospital

Romeen Lavani, MD, MBBS, FAAP joined the Saint Anthony Hospital team in 2004. He is board certified in both pediatrics and pediatric critical care and has received countless accolades for his work and research in the pediatric field.

Dr. Lavani oversees the SAH medical staff, medical education, and partnerships with healthcare institutions across Chicago. His bedside manner with patients and leadership style makes him a role model for many of the students and staff at Saint Anthony. Dr. Lavani completed his fellowship in pediatric critical care at the University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital. After receiving his medical degree in India, he moved to the U.S. where he completed his internship and residency at the University of Illinois at Chicago.