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People & parties

Fundraiser for CARES is family affair for doctor

By JENNIFER STEWART
Published February 19, 2006

PALM HARBOR - Most west Pasco folks know Dr. Rao Musunuru was named the American Heart Association's 2005 Physician of the Year. They know of his cardiology practice and his work on behalf of numerous local agencies.

What they may not know, however, is that the doctor makes sure he has his camera ready to capture scenes such as sunsets and how light falls on hibiscus blooms outside his Hudson hospital.

"He will wait for the right moment" said Robin Schneider, physician liaison at Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point.

Schneider presented Musunuru's pictures of nature and his travels as part of "This is Your Life, Dr. Musunuru." The benefit for CARES, which drew about 730 guests to the Westin Innisbrook Resort, was based upon the This is Your Life TV series that ran from 1952 to 1961.

Community Aging and Retirement Services Inc., or CARES, is a nonprofit organization that offers aging and retirement programs and services in west-central Florida.

Musunuru, a physician and director of cardiology at the Heart Institute at the Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point, is chairman of the CARES board and a major fundraiser for the organization.

The day of the Feb. 11 event, also at Innisbrook, Musunuru's son Kiran, a clinical fellow at Harvard Medical School, spoke at the 14th annual Cardiology Conference his father organized.

"This is more like a family," Musunuru said of the CARES event he attended with his wife, Prameela, and family members. The couple raised Kiran in west Pasco, where they have lived for 25 years.

The planning committee for the recent event hoped to raise $100,000, which, CARES president and CEO Bill Aycrigg said, "they would have considered a tremendous success."

Instead, they raised more than $221,000.

The money will go toward Community Aging and Retirement Services Inc.'s Hudson Bayonet Point Enrichment Center and other centers, a new adult day care program, the Claude Pepper Senior Health Clinic, and home care services.

"He's the prince," Barbara Holton, executive director of the Good Samaritan Health Clinic, said of Musunuru.

Before dinner, with a near-capacity crowd seated in the ballroom, Musunuru said: "This doesn't look like some honoring party or something."

"It looks like a family affair."

[Last modified February 19, 2006, 01:09:21]