HealthSpace Cleveland, formerly the Health Museum of Cleveland, has a long and proud history of educating the public about health (History of the Health Museum of Cleveland).

The first of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, The Health Museum of Cleveland was founded in 1936 by the president of Cleveland’s Academy of Medicine and a dedicated group of physicians, dentists and community leaders. The museum opened its doors to the public in 1940 and since that time has provided health education and information in a museum setting.

I highly doubt that the founders of the museum would be terribly happy with what the museum's board is up to now.

Reported by Cleveland's Plain Dealer, HealthSpace Cleveland will be hosting a faith healing mass by Catholic faith healer Dr. Issam Nemeh (Faith Healer to be at Health Museum).

The Cleveland health education museum will open its doors to faith healer Dr. Issam Nemeh on July 10, creating an unusual venue for a purported miracle healing service.

HealthSpace Cleveland waived the customary $5,000 rental fee for Nemeh, said Patricia Horvath, the executive director.

"We decided not to charge them because a number of board members are supporters of Dr. Nemeh's work," Horvath said.

Supporters of his work, huh? The Plain Dealer also has an extensive article about Dr. Nemeh's work: Healer's Past as Physician Marked by Career Woes.

Nemeh, who draws thousands to suburban Cleveland churches, had hopscotched Europe looking for a medical specialty before landing in Cleveland in 1982.

He applied unsuccessfully for residency positions here, according to a court document. Then a doctor put in a good word for him at Fairview Hospital. The Syrian-born Nemeh, who graduated from medical school in Katowice, Poland, began a surgical residency at Fairview in 1985. The job paid $20,750.

After Nemeh served three years in the five-year program, the hospital kicked him out, a move that set off a legal battle.

Doctors at Fairview said in an evaluation that Nemeh's knowledge was poor "and his ability to perform on the ward as well as in the operating room remains poor," the court record says. They said that he missed seminars and that he didn't study enough.

Nemeh had twice scored among the lowest 2 percent in the nation on an annual residency exam, according to sworn statements.

Dr. Nemeh's popularity has increased thanks to less than incredulous reporting by a local television station:

Channel 5's Henry [anchor Ted Henry] reported in February that Nemeh's team "has achieved an astonishing rate of success in treating thousands of seriously ill people."

Other news organizations have been similarly unskeptical. The Akron Beacon Journal's Ohio.com had this report (Doctor's Prayers Seen as Healing).

Nemeh is licensed in Ohio as a cardiothoracic anesthesiologist. He completed medical school in Poland and came to the United States in 1982. He served for several years as the chief anesthesiologist at Richmond Heights Hospital and with the since-disbanded Oaktree Physicians group at Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights.

The Plain Dealer disputes this:

He left Huron in 1991 and worked as an anesthesiologist at Richmond General Hospital. Last March, Cathy Nemeh told The Plain Dealer that her husband had been head of anesthesiology at the Richmond Heights hospital.

Hospital officials could not confirm that. They said he worked there four months and was not an employee.

Read the Plain Dealer articles, they reveal even more about how ridiculous this is.

via Pharyngula