UB's Family Medicine Department Receives Largest Gift Ever

By Cynthia Machamer

Release Date: February 15, 2008 This content is archived.

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BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Department of Family Medicine in the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences has received the largest gift in its 38-year history. The $500,000 gift from the Rev. and Mrs. Brendan Griswold will provide funding for UB faculty to conduct primary-care research in health disparities.

The Griswolds' gift creates the Adelaide and Brendan Griswold Professorship in Health Disparities. It will provide the foundation for a future faculty position. More immediately, it will support a part-time faculty member and research and scholarly activity by medical students.

"The UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences is grateful to the Griswolds for their generosity," said Michael E. Cain, M.D., dean of the school. "Endowed faculty positions enable UB to attract and retain the best and brightest physicians, strengthen our recruitment efforts, provide seed money to enhance the development of new technologies and research trials and help the school to realize its goal of being recognized as a top-tier, nationally ranked medical school."

The Griswolds, of Vero Beach, Fla., who are retired, made the gift after becoming aware of the shortage of family-medicine physicians and after learning about the role family physicians play in the care of underserved populations.

"We want to encourage medical students interested in working with the underserved to consider family medicine as a career choice, and we hope this will help," they said.

Their daughter, Kim Griswold, M.D., M.P.H., is an associate professor in family medicine, psychiatry and social and preventive medicine at UB and a 1994 graduate of the UB medical school. She helped found the Family Medicine Research Fund, which has been integrated into the new professorship established by her parents.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, a flagship institution in the State University of New York system, and its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB's more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities. The School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, School of Dental Medicine, School of Nursing, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and School of Public Health and Health Professions are the five schools that constitute UB's Academic Health Center.