06/26/2025
Alyson’s Place Provides Primary Medical Care and More
JFSA achieving potential client Marty Tansky, left, during a recent appointment with JFSA medical assistant Melissa Coles at Alyson’s Place Medical Clinic. Submitted photo
Jewish Family Service Association (JFSA), a beneficiary agency of the Federation, is celebrating 150 years of serving the community. This story is part of a Cleveland Jewish News series honoring this milestone anniversary.
Article reprinted with permission from Cleveland Jewish News
by S.A. McSherry
Dr. David Rosenberg, a member of the executive board at Jewish Family Service Association of Cleveland, is known for his persuasive touch—especially when it comes to rallying colleagues to help others. Just ask ophthalmologist Dr. Philip Goldberg, who now volunteers at Alyson’s Place Medical Clinic, a partnership between JFSA and MetroHealth.
“If you’re good friends with David Rosenberg, you end up doing a lot of things like this,” Goldberg told the Cleveland Jewish News, with a laugh.
Goldberg equipped the center with an eye examination room using equipment donated by Cleveland Clinic and he has volunteered at Alyson’s Place for the past 10 years.
JFSA, which is celebrating 150 years of social service to the community this year, is working to facilitate access to medical, behavioral health and social services at Alyson’s Place, according to CEO Susan Bichsel.
“It’s more comfortable for clients who may have anxiety, behavioral or other issues because they are in a surrounding where they have all their health care in one place,” Goldberg said.
Alyson’s Place, located at JFSA’s headquarters in Pepper Pike, offers a range of services including primary care, women’s health, podiatry, ophthalmology, and access to a dental clinic van for clients aged 62 and older, in partnership with Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine. The clinic also provides vaccines, geriatric memory care, and assessments for dementia and cognitive impairment, according to its mission, of providing support to aging adults.
Rosenberg, an assistant clinical professor at the CWRU School of Medicine and a key figure in the development of Alyson’s Place, recalled that when he was a first-year medical student at CWRU in 1970 , one of his very first assignments – right after receiving his white lab coat – was to make house calls to pregnant patients as part of the “family clinic.”
Learning from that experience of developing relationships with clients, and later, following a presentation by students speaking about their experiences and their in-home visits, JFSA and CWRU partnered to develop a program in 2015 called “Aging in Place.”
“Students learn the art of developing patient/clinician relationships, communications skills and what matters most to the patients/clients they interact with,” Rosenberg told the CJN.
It helps with loneliness and isolation of seniors as they interact with young adults, he said.
“The vulnerable and senior clients JFSA serves have an ideal model for health care delivery,” Rosenberg said.
He cited a client saying, “Empathy is most important, you have to treat the whole person, then zero in on the cough.”
And the students wholeheartedly agreed, he said.
Following a pause in the program due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Aging in Place was replaced with what is called the Kowal Sage program at JFSA, which is similar in structure, Rosenberg said.
CWRU assistant professor Jereme Mellenthin, who runs a similar model for physician assistant students, told the CJN, “Our program aims to get students out to the community in many different populations and many different settings to help them understand the barriers clients’ face.”
This includes partnering with JFSA, he said.
Many clients are Jewish, some are Holocaust survivors or children or family of survivors, and JFSA trains students about trauma-informed care before they even start to make home visits to their geriatric clients, Mellenthin said.
“Students learn how to be sensitive to clients,” and anticipate that something may trigger someone or may cause a reaction they don’t expect and can hopefully avoid that situation, he said.
“It’s such an invaluable tool,” Mellenthin said. “I never had this 30 years ago in PA (physician assistant) school. I sometimes had to make a mistake because I didn’t know any better and then I reflected on it and learned from it. Now, we can give students these opportunities ahead of time.”
The heart of the clinic belongs to the memory of Alyson Spira Arenberg, for whom the clinic is named, according to JFSA. The establishment of Alyson’s Place involved a collaboration between JFSA and Alyson’s parents, Jim and the late Myrna Spira, local business leaders who have served the community in many ways.
Alyson’s Place chief operating officer Nata Mendlovic said the center initially opened in 2013 in collaboration with University Hospitals with UH doctors. In 2017, JFSA partnered with MetroHealth doctors and the center also provides other medical providers in ophthalmology, podiatry, dementia care and psychiatry, some of whom are volunteers.
The growth and expansion of services at Alyson’s Place continues. In 2023, JFSA launched a Living with Chronic Conditions program, in which first-year CWRU medical students interview JFSA clients and their caregivers regarding chronic conditions, Mendlovic said.
