January 28, 2025
Pediatric AIDS Benefit Concert (PABC) Still Gives Back After 32 Years
By August Ryan
Drexel University College of Medicine students, faculty and professional staff filled Drexel’s Main Building auditorium with music for a worthy cause on Saturday, January 25. The 32nd annual Pediatric AIDS Benefit Concert (PABC) is part of a tradition that has raised more than $765,000 for children living with HIV and AIDS to date.
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The student-run concert includes music and dance performances, with ticket sales, donations and an auction all benefiting the Dorothy Mann Center. The center, at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, provides comprehensive care for people with HIV, support to patients’ families and prevention services.
Daniel H. Conway, MD, director of the Dorothy Mann Center, said PABC funds have helped it adapt and respond to community needs across time.
“Over the years, we have used PABC funds to help extend the types of services we're able to provide,” Conway said. “The value extended from the annual concert is wide-ranging, from supporting initiatives of a very serious nature, like providing mental health care, to helping us offer community events that have become very important to our patients over the years.”
The benefit for pediatric AIDS care began 39 years ago, when Dennis Novack, MD, launched a talent show for musically inclined medical students at Brown University.
“We realized it was really successful, so we decided to make it a fundraiser,” said Novack, a College of Medicine professor of medicine and associate dean of medical education. “We chose to fundraise for pediatric AIDS because 40 years ago, the impact of AIDS was horrible, and seeing children affected was heartbreaking.”
When Novack moved to the College of Medicine, medical students with friends at Brown asked to launch the fundraiser in Philadelphia. Novack and the students reached out to St. Christopher’s and booked a Drexel gym to host their event.
The inaugural PABC raised a few thousand dollars for St. Christopher’s, but its output, attendance and impact have grown over time. Each year, College of Medicine students spend months bringing PABC to life, from lining up acts to coordinating refreshments, all in the name of giving back to children and their families.
Although he performs annually with his band, The Dennis Novack Experience, Novack credits generations of medical students with the fundraiser’s success.
“Every year, student volunteers have stepped up and put their hearts into the event, and it’s just gotten bigger and more successful over time,” Novack said. “I’m proud of our students and their altruism.”
HIV care has changed greatly in the three decades that PABC has helped support the Dorothy Mann Center. While HIV is now managed as a chronic illness, ongoing medical care can lead to financial strain. PABC funds help families with such costs as college application fees, housing, utilities, food and rent.
PABC funds have also helped the Dorothy Mann Center adapt its outreach efforts as HIV prevention has become more accessible, according to Conway.
“As the AIDS epidemic has shifted, thankfully we don’t see as many children with HIV, but what we do see is the acquisition of HIV by young teens,” he said. “PABC funds have helped extend prevention for young people at high risk of getting HIV.”
St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, which is owned in partnership by Tower Health and Drexel University, is a vital resource of health and healing, medical education and research, and is relied upon by the children and families in its Philadelphia neighborhood and the broader region.
Conway said the Dorothy Mann Center is unique in its whole-family approach to patient care. Mental health care, medical case management and links to outside resources are available to help all members of a family thrive. Family members who are not patients of the center can easily seek care through connections at St. Christopher’s and at Drexel Medicine’s practices.
Megha Sangam, MD/MPH class of 2028, a current PABC co-chair, was drawn to the event because of the Dorothy Mann Center’s comprehensive approach to care.
“I love talking about medicine in terms of working with individual patients and families,” she said. “But I also love the idea of being able to do things to help an entire community. There’s a component of community health, which I’m passionate about, that comes into play here.”
Sangam was part of the fundraising committee for PABC 2024 before taking a leadership role this year. She said it has been gratifying not only to know the positive impact the Dorothy Mann Center has in Philadelphia, but also to be part of a group of students that is excited to support the center’s work.
Sangam and her co-chair, Mekha Varghese, MD class of 2027, made it a point this year to involve a larger variety of performers than in past years. With the MD program’s Philadelphia campus in University City, it was easy to reach out to performers and attendees from other Philadelphia medical schools, as well as from Drexel University health professions and graduate science programs.
The College of Medicine’s Impulse dance team, DUCOM Classical, and other PABC regulars performed this year. The Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus also made a guest performance, invited by chorus member Stephen Pagkalinawan, MD, a Drexel infectious disease specialist, faculty member, and Dorothy Mann Center clinician. Stream the concert here.
Philadelphia City Commissioner of Health, Palak Raval-Nelson, PhD, MPH, and a Drexel University alumna, attended and remarked on hard work done by the City and the Dorothy Mann Center in facing the AIDS epidemic.
For Varghese, building community and connection through PABC has been especially gratifying.
“As second-year students, we’re so focused academically, and it’s such a privilege right now to see our peers, or faculty like Dr. Novack, share their talents and do what they love,” she said. “These are such talented people and the best cause that we can support.”
Contact
Britt Faulstick
Executive Director, News and Media Relations
University Marketing & Communications
Pronouns: he/him/his
bef29@drexel.edu
Drexel University
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Philadelphia, PA 19104
Tel: 215.895.2617 | Cell: 215.796.5161
drexel.edu
Source: Drexel University College of Medicine
https://drexel.edu/medicine/news-events/news-archive/2025/january/pediatric-aids-benefit-concert-still-gives-back-after-32-years/
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