The Blair and Georgia Sadler Fund to Support Socially Just Health Policy

Blair L. Sadler, JD,  President Emeritus of Rady Children’s Hospital, and Georgia Robins Sadler, MBA, PhD, FAACE, a cancer researcher, have made a major gift for work on socially just health policy at The Hastings Center, the pioneering bioethics research institute.

The Sadlers’ commitment to justice and compassion in health care has been central to who they are and the work they have been doing over their lifetimes,” said Hastings Center President Mildred Solomon. “Their gift will enable The Hastings Center to expand its research, enhance its impact, and cultivate a more diverse set of scholars committed to creating a more equitable world. We are truly excited and deeply honored.”

The Blair and Georgia Sadler Fund for Socially Just Health Policy will support research, development, and dissemination of publicly accessible information to advance the promotion of socially just health policies worldwide. A strategic priority of The Hastings Center is to pursue targeted approaches to health policy-related bioethics research, communication, and engagement that respond directly to health disparities and other pressing social justice-related realities. Through its projects, publications, and other means of disseminating health policy-related information, The Hastings Center shapes ideas that influence key opinion leaders, including health policymakers, regulators, stakeholders, health care professionals, lawyers, legislators, judges, and journalists.

Dr. Sadler is an emeritus professor in the department of surgery at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. She served as the founding Associate Director for Community Outreach at the UCSD Moores Cancer Center.  Her research focuses on developing and testing programs that can reduce health disparities among diverse communities. Such programs involve cancer prevention, early detection, and survivorship, as well as achieving better representation of diverse communities in the health and science workforce and among clinical trials participants.

Blair Sadler is a senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and a member of the faculty at the University of California San Diego’s Rady School of Management. He is a founding fellow of The Hastings Center and a current member of the board.  He and his brother, Alfred, a physician, helped draft the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, approved in 1968, which established the legal framework for organ donation in the United States. He has written extensively about the legal, ethical, and policy issues involved in organ donation, the impact of hospital architecture on patient and staff safety and well-being, and the power of transparency in leadership.

Blair and Georgia have also made significant contributions to the public good through their volunteer community service commitments. Blair has served on the board of the Center for Health Design and is a member of the Boards of Health Care Without Harm and Access Youth Academy. Georgia has held leadership roles at the American Cancer Society, the San Diego Youth Symphony, Every Woman Counts, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and the American Association for Cancer Education.

The world’s first bioethics research institute, The Hastings Center was established in 1969 to examine issues in health care, public health, and the life sciences and their impact on individuals and society. The Hastings Center uses an interdisciplinary process to analyze complex issues from several different perspectives— legal, medical, biological, philosophical, economic, and personal—in order to clarify ethically appropriate options and seek common ground. Its two peer-reviewed journals, the Hastings Center Report and Ethics & Human Research, publish leading thinking in the field.