Full Article: https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/feature/uc-san-diego-raises-3.05-billion-as-campaign-for-uc-san-diego-concludes#health

Advancing medicine and patient care

UC San Diego Health is dedicated to advancing medicine through breakthrough discoveries, including pioneering firsts in surgery, imaging, cancer treatment and cardiovascular care. UC San Diego Health is ranked 1st in San Diego and 5th in California for health care by U.S. News & World Report, positioning it among the nation’s best hospitals.

During the Campaign, UC San Diego Health went through an immense transformation and expansion. Science research was bolstered by the 2014 opening the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute, which translates scientific discoveries into drugs and therapies. Jacobs Medical Center then opened in 2016, followed in 2018 by the Koman Family Outpatient Pavilion, which includes eight surgery suites, basic and advanced imaging, physical therapy and pain management plus infusion and apheresis services.

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Jacobs Medical Center at UC San Diego Health opened in 2016.

“Over the last decade, UC San Diego Health has undergone a tremendous transformation that has benefited patients throughout the region with enhanced treatments and better facilities,” said UC San Diego Health CEO Patty Maysent. “We are so grateful to our donors who have generously partnered with us in providing the best possible care for patients, from building the leading-edge facilities to recover and heal, to offering new and innovative treatments of promise.”

Thanks to the support of Irwin and Joan Jacobs, as well as many other generous donors, Jacobs Medical Center has now served the community with specialty patient care for over five years. It is home to the A. Vassiliadis Family Pavilion for Advanced Surgery, the Pauline and Stanley Foster Pavilion for Cancer Care and the Rady Pavilion for Women and Infants.

Alumnus Aaron Sathrum, MS ’06, PhD ’11, can attest to the impact of the care available at Jacobs Medical Center. All three of his children were born at the facility, but his youngest son, Niels, was born at only 26 weeks in the medical center’s Rady Pavilion for Women and Infants. Niels was only 2.2 pounds and suffered from collapsed lungs, an intestinal perforation, a brain hemorrhage, jaundice and a blood infection.

“The challenges ahead were great, but with a treatment plan in place, the help of the Jacobs Medical Center team and the resilience of our son, we were released earlier than expected,” said Sathrum. “Although we spent over half of the year in the hospital, unsure of what was to come next, there is no better feeling than knowing our family is together.”

Aaron Sathrum and family.
All three of the Sathrum family’s children were born at Jacobs Medical Center.
Niels is now over a year old. “Every day I look at him—I’m grateful,” said Sathrum.

During the Campaign for UC San Diego, many donors helped advance treatments for cancer. Centers and research initiatives established at UC San Diego Health included the Hanna and Mark Gleiberman Head and Neck Cancer Center, the Dean-Hertzberg Breast Cancer Database System (BCDS) at Moores Cancer Center and the Comprehensive Breast Health Center supported by Rebecca Moores. As a result, patients are better equipped with leading-edge technologies and treatments to overcome cancer.

In addition, donors came together to support ocular health and fight eye disease and blindness. Andrew J. Viterbi gave $50 million to name the Viterbi Family Department of Ophthalmology and the Viterbi Family Vision Research Center, which also created six new endowed faculty chairs. The Nixon Visions Foundation, led by UC San Diego alumnus Brandon Nixon ’85, and his wife, Janine, established the Nixon Visions Foundation Macular Dystrophy-PRPH2 Research Fund to treat macular dystrophy, a condition for which there is no cure. And, continuing her decades-long legacy of support for eye health, Darlene Shiley gave $10 million for the clinical space expansion of the Shiley Eye Institute at UC San Diego Health, which will bring a new era of vision care and research with increased clinical capacity and research infrastructure.

The Campaign also ushered in a new era of public health research, education and advances with a $25 million gift from the Dr. Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Family Foundation that established the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science. The Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health is working to promote healthier populations on a local, national and global scale.

Daniel and Phyllis Epstein also recently established the Epstein Family Alzheimer’s Research Collaborative at UC San Diego and USC, with $25 million going to each institution to spark new collaborative efforts to discover effective therapies for Alzheimer’s disease.

Worker in lab.
Philanthropic funds are fueling advancements in treatments and cures for disease that will ultimately benefit people around the world.
Establishing endowed faculty chairs was a key priority of the campaign, with 40 created in the health sciences. Iris and Matthew Strauss, longtime supporters of cancer research and patient care at Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health established the Iris and Matthew Strauss Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in Head and Neck Surgery to support excellence in research, education and clinical care.

“Endowed faculty chairs play a critical role in helping to attract and retain the top minds in science and medicine,” said Steven Garfin, MD, interim vice chancellor for Health Sciences and interim dean of the UC San Diego School of Medicine. “We are so grateful to our donors who have supported UC San Diego in the discovery and development of better treatments and new cures for devastating diseases and medical conditions.”

Looking to the future, Price Philanthropies Foundation and the Price family donated $10 million to support a new 250,000-square-foot outpatient pavilion at the UC San Diego Medical Center’s Hillcrest campus, which is currently undergoing revitalization. The outpatient pavilion is anticipated to open in 2025.

To read more about the incredible medical advancements made possible with philanthropy, including those to battle conditions such as Parkinson’s, traumatic brain injury and more, please visit the Campaign for UC San Diego website.