Anchors Aweigh For Cleveland Clinic Docs: They'll Be Stars Of Luxury Cruises

CLEVELAND (TDB) -- The ships will be sailing everywhere from the South Seas to South America. Six Cleveland Clinic doctors have been signed as star attractions to offer medical insights aboard luxury cruises this year, and the physicians are being headlined as luminaries from "one of the nation's most respected academic medical research centers." Among destinations the luxury line Crystal Cruises says it will be voyaging to are Papeete and New Zealand. Apparently, physicians are going to play the roles that authors, lecturers, sports figures and actors have played as featured attractions to lure the posh set aboard.

The six docs are David Sholitin, former director of the Clinic's Cole Eye Institute; Fredrick Wilson director of the back and neck center in Solon' Margaret McKenzie, obstetrician-gynecologist and women's health expert; Lesie Cho, cardiologist and director of the Women's Cardiovascular Center; Wael Barsoum, surgeon and Vice Chair of the Orthopedic and Rheumatologic Institute, and Donald Malone, psychiatrist who will hold forth on wellness of mind, body and spirit.

This is the kind of crew that, perhaps, can generate international buzz and help Cleveland shake its image as forlorn manufacturing town. The luxury line's presser about the docs is here, and it describes the voyages as a kind of floating spa with fares starting at $2,9995 per person.