“If salary were important to me obviously I wouldn’t be doing this,” said Lerer, who’s on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
There are 124 city or county health districts in Ohio, and Dr. Lerer at age 69 now is one of, if not the, longest serving health commissioner, said Beth Bickford, executive director of the Association of Ohio Health Commissioners.
In 2012, Dr. David Rosebrock retired after 39 years as Allen County Health Commissioner and at the time was reportedly the longest serving, according to Bickford.
“The No. 1 role as health commissioner is prevention of disease,” Lerer said, through efforts to reduce tobacco use, premature births and drug addiction.
But Lerer will tell you it’s Patricia Burg, director of Butler County Health Department, that has “total control” and oversees daily operations. She’s been director for 30 years and with the health department 44 years.
Bickford said health commissioners by statute must be a licensed physician, dentist, veterinarian, podiatrist or chiropractor or have a master’s degree in public health. She said while they have the medical background, they often lack the business savvy of accounting and human resources that the director will possess.
“It’s a good team,” Bickford said.
Each year Lerer signs off on all health department protocols for nurses and health clinics — everything from how and when to give immunizations, how to treat diaper rash and which antibiotics to use.
“He’s a quiet leader here; a tremendous advocate of public health,” Burg said. “He does a lot with the community, promoting public health and pediatrics.”
Lerer is also associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He has been teaching medical students for 42 years.
Dr. Lerer, who lives in Fairfield, was first introduced to Butler County after being recruited to join Pediatric Associates of Fairfield, a practice that’s grown to 70 employees and four locations in Greater Cincinnati. He is senior partner at the practice but mainly does administrative work and consults on difficult cases.
“Community pediatrics is what I’ve done all my life and that’s who I am,” Lerer said. “My dad was a dentist so I was exposed early to patient interaction.”
Lerer said by September 2016 he will retire from Pediatric Associates and become professor emeritus. But he won’t be retiring from the health department.
“My wife believes I’m a workaholic,” Lerer said. “I’m in agreement with her.”
At his peak, Lerer was working 80 hours a week. In the past five years he’s reduced to 25 hours a week.
“He is a tireless and dedicated proponent of public health,” said Jennifer Bailer, director of nursing at Butler County Health Department.
Bailer said Lerer was one of the “very first and staunch” supporters of the Butler County Partnership to Reduce Infant Mortality that formed in 2013. Within that, Bailer said he’s been instrumental in a Centering Pregnancy program getting off the ground.
“Locally in Butler County as well as nationally and internationally, he is a champion of the poor and those who lack access to health care services,” Bailer said.
Medical missionary
In fact for over two decades Dr. Lerer has made medical mission trips to handfuls of countries and treated thousands of patients through organizations including Caring Partners International; Christian Medical and Dental Associations; and Equipping Ministries International.
Lerer’s mission work includes primary care to remote, under-served or poor areas of Haiti, India and Nicaragua, to name a few. He also makes faculty exchange trips to teach health care providers in countries including Cuba, China, India and Ukraine.
“I tend to have a gift to relate cross culturally to many. I grew up in a society basically color blind,” Lerer said, who grew up in Cuba. “My work is an affirmation of you do have to love one another.”
His next mission trip with wife Janis, a retired nurse, takes off July 10 for Havana, Cuba. He’s made 40 different trips to Cuba alone.
“He’s passionate about his medical missionary work, and brings our ideas of public health to them and bring their policies and practices here for a good cultural mix,” Burg said.
Since the 1970s, Lerer said he’s witnessed some positive improvements in the public health of Butler County, including steady declines in smoking, declines in tuberculosis, and the eradication of many diseases including mumps, measles, rubella, and forms of meningitis through immunization.
“Dr. Lerer still sees those diseases in his global travel and still sees the need to be vigilant with immunizations,” said Jackie Phillips, Middletown health commissioner.
Lerer said the county still needs to work on its high rate of prescription pill misuse, heroin addiction and infant mortality rate.
Even after 38 years of the job, Phillips said Lerer remains “very progressive and relevant to today. He stays current and is very public health minded.”
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