Giving Opportunities

We encourage you to become involved with the UC San Diego Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology and Palliative Care and join us in helping older adults live their best lives longer and individuals affected by serious illness.

Below are some of the giving opportunities for our current and future projects. By supporting our efforts, you can ensure that our research, education programs, and clinical care keep pace with the needs of our community and remain strong. We would be happy to discuss any of these areas in further detail or explore new ideas other than those mentioned below based on individual philanthropic interests.

GERIATRICS & GERONTOLOGY

Advancing Health Care

Building an Age-Friendly Health System

As we age, we all deserve safe, high-quality health care that is based on what matters most to each of us as individuals and is delivered reliably in every setting. Locally, UC San Diego Health is leading this effort by striving to become an Age-Friendly Health System based on a national initiative. As part of the initiative, UC San Diego Health is implementing a set of evidence-based interventions designed to improve care for older patients known as the "4Ms" - What Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility. The ultimate goal? Age-friendly care provided every day to every older adult patient. Our involvement within this national initiative is providing us with valuable tools to meet this goal; however, additional resources are needed to help us with this process and prove we can transform our entire healthcare system.

Quality Improvement Projects

No matter how good the care one provides, there is always room for quality improvement - whether it be related to operations, communication, documentation, or standards of care. Our team does not always have the funds or time to assess areas for improvement, and more importantly, make real change. Funds to support these activities can lead to real improvements that have impact here at the local level and potentially beyond by sharing lessons learned and strategies to enact improvements. Trainees also benefit from completing quality improvement projects that are important to themselves and benefit many!

Enhancing Geriatrics Education

Fellowship Support

Our mission of educating top-notch geriatricians to practice in the community and become national leaders in the field of aging is, more than ever, critically important. With an existing shortage of geriatricians, gifts that support our fellowship program enhance our role in the advancement of Geriatrics Medical Education. Our program would benefit from support in multiple capacities. Philanthropic gifts to enhance the fellows' current training experiences, both within UC San Diego and in the community would provide tremendous value! Additionally, support for the program leadership and administration is always needed to ensure a solid program that supports our trainees, continues to evolve and expand on opportunities, and remains attractive to applicants. Supporting recruitment efforts (e.g., recruitment video development) is also a way to help encourage the best and brightest to enter the field.

Funding for the Geriatrics Gerontology, & Palliative Care Grand Rounds Series

Our Division has had a grand rounds series for several years. Support for this growing series, which provides formal continuing education, would afford us the opportunity to invite renowned guest speakers to UC San Diego to share their expertise with the Division. A named, endowed lectureship would set our Division apart from our peers at other academic medical institutions and ensure physicians, other health care providers, researchers and trainees, across UC San Diego and other local healthcare systems, academic institutions and community-based organizations can be educated on Geriatrics, Gerontology and Palliative Care from distinguished guest lectures and obtain continuing education credits in perpetuity.

Travel Awards for Trainees

Providing funds to allow medical students and other trainees the opportunity to attend an aging-related conference can provide invaluable exposure to the many facets of good quality care and the opportunity to meet potential mentors. Attendance at a conference by trainees unsure of their career goals can sometimes be the tipping point that persuades them to pursue geriatrics, and at the very minimum, provides them with greater knowledge and a foundation for improving their care of their older patients regardless of their career focus.

Expanding Discovery

Faculty Chair Endowments

The permanent and sustained nature of endowed gifts makes them uniquely impactful by benefiting people and programs now and creating a stable foundation for planning and future growth. An endowed fund is created with a gift that is held and invested in perpetuity to generate a permanent expendable income stream for a purpose of the donor’s choosing. An administrative endowed chair is the campus’s highest distinction, used to reward and recognize senior faculty, signifying leadership in their field and their important role in our campus community. Gifts to establish administrative endowed chairs enhance the attractiveness and academic prestige of an administrative position for a distinguished scholar. Endowed faculty chairs provide a dedicated, ongoing source of funds for the chairholder’s scholarly activities as well as support for research and activities of the program or department, faculty salaries and graduate fellowships.

Supporting Research Across Populations

Our Division is committed to supporting investigators from various backgrounds and conducting research across multiple older adult populations. We currently have a grant from NIH (our AD-RCMAR) to annually provide mentorship and funding to 3-4 early-career investigators to conduct research in underrepresented populations of older adults focused on Alzheimer’s disease. With additional funding, we could expand this program to include a focus on other topics aside from Alzheimer’s disease that also disproportionately affect certain sociodemographic populations of older adults.  Along with the research itself, it is important that we also learn how to best engage individuals not already represented in research, create solid relationships with local communities, and share the results of our research in the community in ways that are meaningful and easy to understand.  

Pilot Projects

Funding for small research projects (e.g., pilot projects) can play a pivotal role in supporting the ability for a junior faculty member to launch their research career and/or provide the opportunity to collect baseline data for a research idea needed to pursue additional funding and federal grants and/or determine implications for clinical practice suggestions.

Student Research Experience

Providing students at many levels (undergraduate, graduate, medical school) the opportunity to gain experience in research can be profound. Yet it can also be costly to the faculty researcher and lab, and grant funds don’t always fully cover this expense, if at all. Donations of any size to support this opportunity for students would be helpful – not only for their hands-on research experience, but also the costs to publish and/or present their work at a conference.

PALLIATIVE CARE

The UC San Diego Health Palliative Care Program has been developing since 2005. We currently have four inpatient teams at Hillcrest and La Jolla Hospitals including the team that staffs our Step Family Foundation Inpatient Palliative Care Unit. We work as a team of experts who serve UCSD patients with serious, progressive, and life-threatening illnesses.

It is our mission to provide equitable, compassionate, team-based care to all of those affected by serious illness by addressing emotional, physical, social, and spiritual wellbeing using clinical excellence, advocacy, innovation, and education.”

At UCSD, palliative care is provided by a specially-trained team of chaplains, nurses, pharmacists, physicians, and social workers who work together with a patient’s other providers to maximize quality of life. Palliative care is based on the needs of the patient, not on prognosis and it can be provided along with curative treatment. When we can do our job well, patients are able to tolerate their treatments for longer and with a higher quality of life.

UC San Diego Health continues to invest in the growth and development of this program, which provides opportunities for you to join in investing in our advancement. Here are some ways you can support our work:

• Support our team-based model of care by supporting our nurses, pharmacists, social workers, and spiritual care experts
• Help us design and kick-off an annual giving campaign for UCSD Palliative Care
• Help fund a Center for Interprofessional Palliative Care Research
• Help build a stand-alone palliative care clinic to serve as a one-stop shop for patient and family needs
• Enrich patient and family experiences by helping us add acupuncture, massage, child life, music therapy, and interpreter services to our teams
• Support ways for us to train more healthcare workers in communication and symptom management
• Support the training of physicians in palliative medicine by funding fellowship positions
• Fund second year palliative medicine fellowships to help physicians get even more training in skills like teaching others, informatics and palliative care, quality improvement, or research
• Help us plan for comfort care suites in UCSD hospitals