Jerome L Belinson, MD is the Ex-officio Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation 1990-2000. He has dedicated his career to advancing the screening and treatment of gynecologic cancers.

Dr. Belinson serves as Professor of Surgery with the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of the Case Western Reserve University. He trained in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University’s Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, and was a Fellow in Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Miami, Jackson Memorial Hospital.  Dr Belinson began the first formal gynecologic oncology service at the University of Vermont in 1977.  He has previously held full professorships at the University of Vermont (tenured) and The Ohio State University.

Voted Teacher of The Year at the University of Vermont, and on two occasions at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Belinson received the 2004 distinguished graduate Citation of Merit from the University of Missouri Medical School, The Bruce Hubbard Stewart Award for Humanitarianism in Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, and is consistently listed among the “Best Doctors in America”.

Dr. Belinson is the founding director of Preventive Oncology International, Inc. (“P.O.I.”), a research organization that blends humanitarian work with investigative science. Dr. Belinson has served as an Advisor to the Ministry of Science in India, the medical advisory board for the Gates Foundation START project (to develop a rapid, low-cost HPV test), and serves on the Board of Directors of Grounds for Health, an organization that provides care for women in coffee-growing regions of the world, and the Global Initiative Against HPV and Cervical Cancer.

Dr Belinson has worked for more than 20 years in many rural Chinese provinces. His initial study, known as SPOCCS I, received international acclaim and continues to serve as a model for study design in epidemiology courses around the world.

In 2010 Dr. Belinson was awarded “The People’s Republic of China Friendship Award.” This award, established in the 1950’s, is the People’s Republic of China’s highest award for foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to the country’s economic and social progress.

Dr. Belinson and his colleagues of Preventive Oncology International, Inc. have also been recognized for their careful adherence to and promotion of human values and the proper conduct of studies involving human subjects in the developing world. Over the past 15 years many studies have been completed resulting in dozens of publication and presentations at national and international meetings. In addition to many scientific contributions, the work of P.O.I. has resulted in the approval of liquid-based cytology and HPV testing in China, the introduction of many other new technologies, as well as numerous educational sessions and international exchanges for Chinese physicians. These activities lead his Chinese collaborators to develop a cervical cancer consortium throughout China, and also lead to collaborations between the Chinese and the World Health Organization and the Gates Foundation. Most importantly, almost 50,000 women who have participated in the studies received screening for cervical cancer, often for the only time in their lives.