The Monroe County Medical Society has recognized two local professionals with its 2025 Edward Mott Moore Physician and Layperson Awards. This award recognizes individuals whose dedication to the community goes above and beyond the usual call of duty.
They are:
• Physician Stanley Schaffer, winner of the 2025 Edward Mott Moore Physician Award.
Schaffer is a professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He did his pediatric residency at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, his fellowship in academic general pediatrics at the University of Rochester and joined the faculty in the Division of General Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center in 1991.
He worked as a primary care pediatrician mainly serving children and adolescents in impoverished families while also leading and participating in health services research and activities supporting a healthier community. His research activities mostly focused on ways to improve blood lead testing rates for young children and to enhance childhood immunization rates.
In 1994, Schaffer became the inaugural co-director of the Western New York Lead Poisoning Resource Center’s Rochester Office, funded by the NYS Department of Health. He continued to direct the center, working closely with community groups and local health departments in the nine-county Finger Lakes region throughout his career. In 2000, recognizing the need to address childhood lead poisoning in a community-wide collaborative manner, Schaffer participated in the founding of Rochester’s Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning (CPLP), which subsequently was recognized nationwide for its community-based approach to addressing the problem of childhood exposure to lead.
He has been a member of CPLP’s executive committee for many years and, in 2004, he established CPLP’s screening and professional education committee to focus on improving blood lead testing rates and educating health care professionals about lead poisoning.
Throughout Schaffer’s professional career, he has been focused on improving the health of children through prevention and collaboration to build a healthier community.
• Mary Zelazny, winner of the 2025 Edward Mott Moore Layperson Award.
Zelazny has been the CEO of Finger Lakes Community Health, a community health center program, since 2006.
As CEO, Zelazny has led a major expansion effort to provide access to healthcare services throughout the Finger Lakes region, including the development of enhanced programs and services designed to reach out to the many culturally diverse communities it serves.
Under Zelazny’s tenure, Finger Lakes Community Health has grown from a single health center site to nine comprehensive health center sites across six counties of rural New York state, serving about 30,000 patients annually.
In addition, Zelazny has focused much of FLCH’s work on the integration of health information technology within the organization. FLCH is now a nationally recognized leader in the implementation and use of telehealth, connecting a wide variety of healthcare providers through technology, to provide more access to care for patients. Zelazny has promoted the incorporation of a high level of cultural competency of staff, as well as integrating care coordination and technology into primary care that has created important collaborative relationships across the region and state. This effort has resulted in expanded access and better health outcomes for patients by addressing the many barriers to care that are inherent in many rural communities of New York State.
She serves on the NYS Rural Health Council, is board chairwoman for Forward Leading IPA, and is the NYS representative to the National Association of Community Health Centers Board of Directors. She also serves on the FLPPS Board, and the Common Ground.