Dear Friends,
This month is Social Work month and we're celebrating our incredible social workers — the people who help patients and families get the supportive care services they need. The burden of cancer extends beyond medical treatment — it affects the lives of patients and everyone around them.
It's also the time for us to thank you, our community of donors and volunteers, who have done so much to ensure that City of Hope's whole-person approach to care remains the guiding spirit behind everything we do.
Someone who understands so well how our philanthropic community has advanced supportive care at City of Hope is Andrew Leitner, M.D., chair of the Department of Supportive Care Medicine and Arthur M. Coppola Family Chair of Supportive Care Medicine.
Dr. Leitner joined me and the Office of Philanthropy for a virtual conversation recently.
As he explained, the philanthropic vision of the Sheri and Les Biller Foundation and other partners 15 years ago helped City of Hope transform an array of services into a department and a philosophy that fully integrates supportive care into the patient experience. It was advanced thinking for the time and put City of Hope on the path to being a recognized national leader in supportive care.
"It's not an exaggeration to say supportive care at City of Hope would not be supportive care without philanthropy," says Leitner.
It was exciting to hear Dr. Leitner talk about the future — both the work ahead and the opportunity. City of Hope's education and training programs are already helping to spread the word around the world about supportive care as an integrated piece of oncology medicine; our evolving national system presents the chance for supportive care to be fully incorporated into our own national cancer care model.
He reflected: "As an organization, we need to lean into change, but change can be tough, and I do see philanthropy as helping expand or increase the slope of change."
I love this idea — and I've seen it many times here at City of Hope. Our philanthropic partners and volunteers come forward to dream big with us, and new ideas are accelerated, new pathways are forged.
I'm so grateful to all of you and our entire donor community for your dedication to supportive care at City of Hope. Our work together is rebuilding lives every day. Thank you for continuing the legacy of our founders, who believed so passionately in going beyond treating the body to whole person-care and healing.
With appreciation,
Kristin J. Bertell
Chief Philanthropy Officer