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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

DANVILLE, PA -- Pat Bruno, M.D., pediatrician and medical director of the Child Advocacy Center (CAC) of the Central Susquehanna Valley, a division of Geisinger’s Janet Weis Children’s Hospital, has been chosen the Sunbury Rotary Club’s 2016 Citizen of the Year.

He’ll be honored as the club’s 61st annual Citizen of the Year on Thursday, March 17, during a 6 p.m. dinner at the Hotel Edison, 401 Market Street, Sunbury.

“Dr. Bruno has earned this recognition for years of service as an advocate for children in the Greater Susquehanna Valley," Rotarian member Anne Rebuck said.

Dr. Bruno began his pediatric practice in Sunbury in 1979 as the only pediatrician in Northumberland County that children and youth services referred child abuse cases to.

He served a mini-residency at the Center for Child Protection at the San Diego Children’s Hospital in California. He brought that training back to Sunbury Community Hospital where he did exams until the early 2000s.

In 2004, Dr. Bruno joined Geisinger Medical Center as a general pediatrician and medical director of the CAC, which was established to embrace victims of child abuse. During his career, he has evaluated more than 6,000 children who have been referred for an evaluation of child maltreatment from a 30-county area in central Pennsylvania.

“I’m honored and very humbled to be Sunbury’s Citizen of the Year,” Dr. Bruno said. “I love taking care of children. I was in private practice in Sunbury for 25 years as a general pediatrician and I loved every minute of it, but I was inundated by insurance demands. So in 2004, I decided to make the move to Geisinger so I could focus more of my time on practicing medicine.”

The CAC recently moved to a building at 218 Chestnut St., Sunbury. The three-story, 6,900-square foot building more than quadrupled the space of the CAC and provides for an expansion of its programming. The building will be formally dedicated on Wednesday, April 13.

“Geisinger adopted the concept of the CAC in 2004. We were seeing 100 per year back then and now we’re seeing between 600 and 700,” Dr. Bruno said. “We now have 6,000 square feet instead of 1,000 and this beautiful facility allows us to do some of the things we’ve always wanted to do.”

Dr. Bruno was included in a 2010 book by David Chadwick, M.D., titled “The Child Abuse Doctors” (STM Learning). In 2014, he joined a select group of doctors nationally who earned pediatric child abuse board certification from the American Board of Pediatrics.

A graduate of Juniata College and Rutgers University, Dr. Bruno earned his medical degree from Penn State Hershey College of Medicine. He completed residencies in pediatrics and child protection. He is a member of the American Board of Pediatrics, a fellow in the American Academy of Pediatrics and a member of the Pennsylvania Academy of Pediatrics. 

About Geisinger
Geisinger is committed to making better health easier for the more than 1 million people it serves. Founded more than 100 years ago by Abigail Geisinger, the system now includes 10 hospital campuses, a health plan with more than half a million members, a research institute and the Geisinger College of Health Sciences, which includes schools of medicine, nursing and graduate education. With more than 25,000 employees and 1,700+ employed physicians, Geisinger boosts its hometown economies in Pennsylvania by billions of dollars annually. Learn more at geisinger.org or connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.