Nonprofit Event Video Production
NMSS Dinner of Champions — Dr. John Schafer Tribute
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Transcript: NMSS Dinner of Champions — Dr. John Schafer Tribute
**Tiffany Malone, MWS, MSCS, Program Manager, MS Achievement Center:** You can't know Dr. Schafer without knowing that he has a tremendous love and affection for the MS community as a colleague, as a friend. In the title of this event, the Dinner of Champions, it speaks directly to him, and who he is and why he's being honored here.
**Brian Hutchinson, Executive Director, Mercy MS Achievement Center:** He's had a tremendous impact. We see it on a daily basis with people that come through our program and look at him from an educational standpoint as a leader in the area of MS care, MS wellness, and MS education.
**Michael Korpiel, DHA, FACHE, President, Mercy San Juan Medical Center:** Dr. Schafer's presence and his vision for the MS Achievement Center is not only an inspiration for me who goes to visit there every once in a while, but clearly for the patients and the staff who are really dedicated to Dr. Schafer.
**Yelena Usmanova, MD, Neurology, MS Specialist, Mercy Medical Group:**: I think Dr. Schafer, for many people, is a person to go to. It's a patient that goes to him, it's a colleague, it's a healthcare team member that goes to him and he can help.
**Sabeen Lulu, MD, Director, Mercy MS Center:** I learned how to be a better person and a better physician from being around Dr. Schafer. I learned from his very difficult vision interactions and how to address them and how to read the patient's ideas in my care.
**Sofia Rogado, RN, MSCN, Program Lead RN, Dignity Health:** It was just heartwarming because I had never had the opportunity to work with a provider that had so much compassion and empathy and caring for the patients that they were treating.
**Peter T. Skaff, MD, FANN, Neurologist, Mercy Medical Group:** I know that when he retired, it struck a lot of patients deeply that they were not going to have him as the leader of their medical family anymore.
He just had that effect on people. He knew how to relate to people with kindness and human emotion that he could bring to each relationship individually. He really knew his patients individually.
**Dr. John Schafer, MD, Founder & Emeritus Director, Mercy MS Center, Founder, Mercy MS Achievement Center:** I started practice in Sacramento in 1978. I had a number of MS patients.
I was a general neurologist for about 15 years before there were any drugs that affected the course of multiple sclerosis.
In those days, it was very difficult to make a diagnosis and to present it to a patient because, A, I mean, there wasn't anything you could do about it and you didn't really know what was going to happen with it. This person might be of fine five years from now or they might be in terrible shape.
Plus, if you told somebody and put in the records that they might have multiple sclerosis, there goes their health insurance. They don't have health insurance anymore.
When we started the MS Achievement Center, we got the grant and opened it up. I was concerned that people would lose interest after a period of time, that they would come for a couple of months and then it would be over.
And that has absolutely not been the case. The retention is amazing. We have people who have been there since 2014. I think the thing that makes me proud is that people continue even after they've been it for years saying, "this is my favorite day of the week, it's changed my life." You know, as even those who say it's been life-saving.
**Dierdre Wentworth, MSNRN, Past Manager, Mercy Neurological Institute at Dignity Health:** You know, besides talking shop when it came to patients or disease processes or whatever, we could sit and talk about families and then go back and he was always concerned about what was going on with those that you worked very closely with inside and outside of the hospital setting.
**Rhonda Canby, Dr. Schafer's Wife:** He's a wonderful grandfather. He's very approachable and tender and gentle with little children. I suppose he's probably that way with patients too. He's the kind of guy who gets on the floor and plays at their level and talks to them for hours about whatever interest them. And I suspect that's the same way he is with patients.
**Linda Santos, Medical Assistant:** Dr. Schaefer literally had patients for 30 plus years that started as teenagers and when he retired were in their 50s.
**Pamela Rosenthal, NP, Neurology Nurse Practitioner, Mercy MS Center:** He put his life work into it and it really showed. People adored to him. He has impacted colleagues, patients. Sometimes it's really indescribable, but it's been such a privilege for me to work with him, and to learn from him.
So I just think his legacy goes on while after he's left us. So, yeah.
About This Video
Dr. John Schafer started practicing neurology in Sacramento in 1978 — fifteen years before the first drug that could change the course of multiple sclerosis. In those early years, a diagnosis was something you delivered knowing there was nothing you could do about it, and knowing that putting it in the medical record meant the patient would likely lose their health insurance. This video is the tribute produced for the National MS Society's Dinner of Champions, where Dr. Schafer is the honoree. Six voices from across his career — colleagues, nurses, patients — describe what made him different. Dr. Schafer speaks for himself about what surprised him most at the MS Achievement Center: people didn't quit. "This is my favorite day of the week. It's changed my life." Patients who started in 2014 are still saying it. He had patients who came to him as teenagers and were in their 50s when he retired. That kind of retention doesn't happen without something real behind it. This is a <span class="strong">nonprofit event video production</span> built around the question every tribute has to answer: why does this person matter? The answer here is specific enough to be convincing.
How do you produce a tribute video for a nonprofit event honoree?
Structure the tribute around specifics, not adjectives. Dr. Schafer's video works because the speakers don't say 'he's compassionate.' They say he learned how to relate to patients as individuals, that he played on the floor with children, that he had patients for thirty years who started as teenagers. Specifics like those give a tribute weight. The other key: include the honoree's own voice. Dr. Schafer speaking about the pre-drug era of MS — when a diagnosis came with nothing to offer — is more moving than any colleague's description of him. The honoree often tells you something no one else can.
What makes a multi-speaker tribute video feel cohesive instead of scattered?
A through-line that doesn't depend on the speakers knowing each other. In Dr. Schafer's tribute, each speaker addresses a different facet of his character — the colleague who learned from him, the patient who felt the loss of his retirement, the coworker who knew his family. None of them are responding to each other, but they're all describing the same person from different angles. That accumulation is what gives the video structure. The edit's job is to make sure each speaker adds something the previous one didn't.
How do you make a nonprofit tribute video useful beyond the night of the event?
Let it answer a question, not just document a moment. The Dr. Schafer video is a record of one evening's tribute — but it's also an argument for what long-term patient care looks like in practice. Someone considering MS care in Sacramento, or a donor evaluating the MS Achievement Center, can watch this and come away with something beyond 'we honored a nice doctor.' The specifics — the pre-drug era, the retention since 2014, the patients who said it changed their lives — make the video functional well past the event.
How long should a tribute video be for a nonprofit gala or dinner event?
Long enough to build, short enough to keep a room's attention. For a gala tribute like the Dr. Schafer video, three to five minutes is the typical range — enough time to hear from multiple speakers and from the honoree, but not so long that you lose the room before the award is presented. The more specific the speakers, the shorter you can go — one precise anecdote does more work than three general statements of appreciation.
