The Bruce Gilboard Family Fund for Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care's Fundraising Page

Thank you for visiting the giving page for the Bruce Gilboard Family Fund. This month marks 8 years since our beloved, Bruce, was diagnosed with an EGFR mutant lung cancer. He was treated at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute until he passed with dignity and surrounded by love in December 2019.

Inspired by the team that cared for Bruce, our family made a major gift to establish the Bruce Gilboard Family Fund for Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care in 2020. The mission of Bruce’s Fund is to ensure that lung cancer patients receive multidisciplinary care that tends to both their physical and emotional well-being. Over the last three years, around Father’s Day, our friends, family, and colleagues have stepped up to generously contribute to this mission. We hope you will take a moment to read more about the impact of the Fund below.

 With love and gratitude,

Bethany, Sam Audrey, Andrew, Alison and Blake Gilboard

IMPACT: 2020-2023

Inspired and informed by Bruce’s experience, The Fund enabled Dana-Farber to pilot an innovative program aimed at reducing patient and caregiver distress by increasing access to psychosocial and palliative care for patients with a EGFR mutant lung cancer diagnosis. For those of you who have been a patient or cared for a loved one with cancer, you know that oncologists are primarily focused on eradicating the cancer, and there is often less focus on a patient’s emotional well-being, goals for quality of life, and mental health. And, even when additional specialists are added to the care team, they are not always communicating with one another. The goal of the pilot we have funded was to show the feasibility and the benefit to patients and their loved ones by systematically offering a “holistic” care model to patients. We are pleased to report that the Fund has been a great success, by coordinating care across oncologists and specialists in psychology, psychiatry, social work, and palliative care, and engaging patients and their primary caregivers in educational programming about coping and managing their disease.  Nearly 100% of Dana-Farber patients diagnosed with an EGFR mutant lung cancer are now receiving these services in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.

The impact of the Fund and the success of this pilot program has exceeded our expectations in such a relatively short time. Its success has inspired the launch of the Supportive Oncology Collaborative, an initiative aimed at expanding this model across the Institute and, crucially, to Dana-Farber’s satellite locations, ensuring that patients who receive treatment outside of the Longwood campus have the same access to supportive care. In addition, this ongoing pilot has allowed the team at Dana-Farber to learn about ways that artificial intelligence and patient reported data can enhance clinical care so as to provide this critical support when patients need it most. We are thrilled and honored to continue our partnership with Dana-Farber to advance this work going forward. We look forward to continuing to share the impact of the Fund and ways you can join us.

To make a gift, click the GIVE button to the right, or by send a check payable to “Dana-Farber Cancer Institute” to Hannah McCoy, Dana-Farber Division of Philanthropy, 10 Brookline Place, Brookline, MA 02445. Please note “Bruce Gilboard Fund in honor of his children in the memo.