The University serves Virginia, the nation, and the world by preparing responsible citizen-leaders; advancing, preserving, and disseminating knowledge; and providing world-class patient care.
All gifts of any kind help secure the University’s place as a premier institution of learning and make it possible for our students, faculty, and researchers to shape a brighter.
You can give to all 12 schools across Grounds. The possibilities are endless for supporting our students, faculty, and programs. Together, we will find the way forward.
You can join the growing number of alumni and friends who invest now in the University’s future by including UVA as a beneficiary of their wills, charitable trusts, and retirement plans. Gifts like these can offer you and your family significant tax benefits as well as greater financial flexibility in meeting your personal and philanthropic goals.
Through Honor the Future, the Campaign for the University of Virginia, we are building on our strong foundations to support the president’s vision: to become the best public university by 2030 and one of the very best in the world.
We are living in an unprecedented time. As the COVID-19 pandemic threatens our health and economy, many are taking the opportunity to acknowledge and reconnect with the good in their lives. We spoke with UVA faculty and students—from a distance, of course—and asked them to share some of the important lessons they’ve learned during this historic moment.
Counting blessings has provided me with solace as I stumble along with everyone else in this pandemic. I am dazzled by the spring beauty. I am humbled by the privilege I enjoy as someone with a home, a family, a dog, and friends who send encouragement from around the world. I am humbled by my job as a physician and the small, yet immediate role I get to play in addressing this challenge.
I am grateful for the leadership in our state, our city, and at the University. I am amazed by my colleagues on the front lines—those who have transformed our outpatient and inpatient care, and those who are responding to a range of other demands on our health care system. I am thankful for the community organizations who have jumped to serve those most in need.
In our clinic, I celebrate the community health workers and case managers who are coordinating food delivery and other fundamental supports for our most vulnerable patients. I marvel at our staff who have navigated telecommuting, despite many of them living in places with little access to broadband.
In the hospital, I am indebted to the patients infected with COVID-19 and their loved ones who have agreed to participate in urgently needed research to evaluate possible treatments. Their courage and willingness to take an individual risk for the sake of many demonstrates a remarkable generosity of spirit.
While gratitude helps me through each day, my gratitude is tempered with outrage. Longstanding and deeply rooted health care inequities—based on race, ethnicity, rurality, and income—have been thrown into stark relief by the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone is suffering, but communities of color are suffering more. The shortcomings of our system with respect to caring for the elderly are painfully visible. The risks associated with incarceration are vivid. While none of these problems originated with this pandemic, the crisis has exacerbated these injustices in devastating ways.
As soon as we are through the worst of this, I look forward to joining with others to do the urgent work needed to dismantle the barriers to health that persist for so many. While this has been a long-term focus of mine, this crisis presents an opportunity to design and demand real change. These barriers threaten all of us, not just those who face them directly. COVID-19 has indubitably demonstrated that fact.
Until we are through the worst, however, I will continue to work, wash my hands, keep my distance, grow tomatoes, lament the amount of screen-time I’m allowing my children, perfect my whole-wheat chocolate chip cookie recipe, and count my blessings.
Rebecca Dillingham, M.D., M.P.H. Director, UVA Center for Global Health Harrison Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor of Medicine
Every year, the graduating fourth-year medical students say things like, “I’m telling you, the end of your fourth year will be the best part of your medical school career!” I remember one person saying, “honestly, I’ve had so much fun that I’m getting tired of it. I’m ready to be an intern.”
Earlier this year, with an ever-growing travel itinerary and fun activities quickly overshadowing assignment due dates on my calendar, the specter of “R&R burnout” was all too real. Now, a few weeks after canceling all plans and telling my mother to cancel her trip from Jamaica (she was flying in for Final Exercises), I’d be happy for a little travel fatigue. Or even a pickup basketball game.
To my friend who became tired of fun, I can safely say that it’s better to have loved and lost. Juxtaposed with the cruel and unusual punishment many are facing in hospitals around the world at the hands of COVID-19, telling mom “we’ll celebrate later” feels more like a slap on the wrist. Not graduating in the company of friends and family is hard. Struggling for air? A bit harder.
Much like a patient might undress before an examination, my graduation has been stripped of regalia and fanfare. Now that it sits exposed, sans balloons and cakes, unadulterated by the distractions of pride, pomp, and circumstance, I can see it for what it is. Equipped with the kind of perspective only a global pandemic can bring, I’ve been able to truly respect the gravity of becoming a medical doctor. Hearing the experiences of my very-soon-to-be colleagues, I’m starting to understand what it means to serve as the first and last line of defense for our nation’s health.
In the same way most people have been working from home during this crisis, medical trainees have also been spending more hours working “in-house” at the hospital. Ever wondered why they’re called “residents?” But until my degree is conferred, until the licenses are secured and the contracts are signed, I wait. I wait with bated breath, sitting on my hands, earnest for my chance to help, but apprehensive about what I’ll find.
These days, even the meaning of “ever-evolving” is ever-evolving, but the wait itself seems to be unyielding, almost oppressive. Many fourth-year medical students nationwide are trapped in this limbo, moving invariably closer to becoming an official part of the health care system but all the while becoming less certain about what our new roles will entail. It turns out my friend’s words were true, as I too am tired and ready for my intern year to start!
Jomar Aryee 4th-year Medical Student
