Personal Sustainability

Spotlight: Maier Family Gift to the UCSF Osher Center's Living Endowment

“Integrative medicine is an entirely new way of looking at the body and your health. It integrates modern medicine with established healing practices and deals with that portion of medicine that has to do with preventing illness or treating illness in a way that is best for the individual. It explores things like acupuncture or psychological counseling. These are things that empower the patient because you are integrating the entire body-mind and physical-to try to live a healthier life or to recover from an illness.

I personally am impressed that the Osher Center is part of UCSF which is clearly established as one of the finest medical facilities and training grounds in the US. This indicates recognition of integrative medicine as another option to help alleviate pain and suffering, to treat illnesses and promote healing.”  
–Peter Maier

Providing the finest care requires a more complete approach to health—one that focuses on the whole person. The UCSF Osher Center does this through prevention, health maintenance and patient-centered care. We provide our patients with information, exercises and self-care techniques to foster personal sustainability and empower individuals to take control of their own health and support life-long healing.

The UCSF Osher Center would like to express its sincere thanks to Peter and Melanie Maier for their support with a gift in the amount of $5,000 to the UCSF Osher Center's Living Endowment.

If you would like more information about the UCSF Osher Center Endowment, please contact: Sue Merrilees, UCSF Senior Director of Development at 415-514-2612 or smerrilees@support.ucsf.edu.

Osher Center in the Community: Examining the End-of-Life Experience for Underserved Women

In the U.S., women with low incomes who are also ethnic minorities are diagnosed with breast cancer at relatively later stages and have lower rates of survival. Little is known about the end-of-life experience for underserved women because most research has focused on white European American, middle class patients in hospitals or extended care facilities. Psychological distress and existential concerns, in addition to pain and physical effects, may be even more common among underserved people with life-limiting conditions.

It will come as no surprise to people familiar with integrative medicine that patients describe a sense of spiritual peace, a relief of burden and strengthening relationships with loved ones as being among the most important aspects of end-of-life care. To better understand this experience for underserved women, we conducted a pilot study among women with breast cancer. As part of the project, we helped each participant construct an ethical will—an enduring document that expresses an individual’s values, beliefs, life lessons, hopes, love and forgiveness in the form of a written legacy for loved ones. This intervention reinforces dying women’s sense of the meaning of their lives and eases concerns regarding death.

Pilot results are promising. One woman, age 52, summarizes her experience:

“My story comes out stream-of-consciousness and it really enables me to share feelings and thoughts about something that is frightening. My life is full of things that are scary. [Participating in the project] gave me the opportunity to try to understand myself and have others understand me.”

This initial pilot study has led to three current projects: Underserved Women with Breast Cancer at the End of Life; Cuentos: Designing a Narrative Intervention for Underserved Latina Women at the End of Life; and End-of-Life Decision Making, Communication, and Meaning.

These projects are made possible by the California Breast Cancer Research Program, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and the National Institutes of Health.

Dear Friends,

I am so fortunate to work with such skilled and empathic people at the Osher Center. Our goals of enhancing health and well-being and transforming medicine are evident each day in the high value that is placed on integrity, collaboration and service. I am grateful, also, to the participants in our studies of the experience of end-of-life among underserved women, who teach us that the values of integrative medicine—healing of the whole person, mind, body, and spirit—are shared by everyone in our community.

My personal goal is to raise awareness so that the wonderful resources that integrative medicine offers are available to all patients, while healthy or at any stage of illness, from every background, and at all levels of financial ability.   

--Shelley Adler, PhD
Director, Education Program
UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine

Fundraising Progress

Friends of the UCSF Osher Center have an unprecedented opportunity to ensure the continued growth and enrichment of the Center. Contributions to the Osher Center priorities are growing: