Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology

Gifts of all sizes help the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology  to continue our ongoing efforts as a leader in innovative and compassionate treatment, groundbreaking research, and excellent surgical medical education. Gifts made with a check or credit card provide immediate support to the Division. 

Contributions to the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology can be unrestricted and used where the need is greatest. Gifts can also be designated to support a specific doctor. Gifts can also be made in memory of a loved one or to honor someone special in your life.

Gifts can be made outright or pledged over a period of up to five years.

Many employers offer a matching gift program to their employees. For every dollar you donate to the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology, your employer will match it either dollar for dollar, two dollars to one dollar, or, in more generous cases, three dollars to one dollar. All you need is a Matching Gift Form from your employer’s Public Affairs Department. Complete the section designated for employees and mail the form to us. We will take care of all the other details and paperwork.

There are many opportunities to commemorate family members, friends, or colleagues on a birthday, anniversary, or another special occasion. Gifts can be made to the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology in honor of a special physician, for example, who has played a significant role in your health. These gifts are greatly appreciated by the people being honored and their families.

A gift made to the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology in memory of a person who has passed away is a special way to honor a beloved friend or family member. Such a gift creates a legacy and memorializes the person by providing direct support to the Division. 

Gift planning allows our donors to thoughtfully choose ways of giving that meet their needs—and the needs of the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology. A development director from the Division and the Johns Hopkins Institutions, Office of Gift Planning can provide you with information on effective charitable planning options so that you can achieve optimum tax, financial, and philanthropic results.

Learn more about gift planning.

Miriam Jay Wurts Andrus was an extraordinary individual who expressed a deep understanding of the need for the delivery of community based comprehensive and coordinated health care for older adults. She recognized that in-home physicians’ care and care from other health professionals is vital to the health, well-being, comfort and sense of hope for home bound seniors. Mrs. Andrus, herself, appreciated such care and wanted to make it more broadly available to others through advocacy, teaching and research. Accordingly, she left a generous gift in her estate to create The Miriam Jay Wurts Andrus Center for Community Geriatrics in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at Johns Hopkins.

Dedicated in 2001, the Center provides support for nurturing and sustaining education and research for clinicians and scholars in the Division of Geriatric Medicine to focus on community-based care especially that is delivered in the community. The Center greatly advances the Division’s tripartite mission in Community Health:

• Model the highest quality clinical care for seniors and develop and advocate for new programs for the most vulnerable
• Provide high quality and innovative teaching for medical, nursing and other health professional students
• Conduct research to improve the health of older adults and society by creating, translating, and disseminating new knowledge in geriatric medicine

Generous and visionary support from an anonymous donor led to the establishment of the Daniel and Jeannette Hendin Schapiro Geriatric Medical Education Center in 2012. The Schapiro Center is a unique collaboration with Johns Hopkins Bayview’s Division of General Internal Medicine with a goal of expanding training in the care of older adults through the development of practical educational programs that prepare physicians, trainees and allied health professionals.

Danelle Cayea, M.D., M.S., the Center’s director states, "It is our plan that programs developed by the Schapiro Center will serve as templates that can be translated into clinical education and practice at programs throughout the United States."

Matthew Tayback’s, Sc.D., philosophy on life was simple, says his daughter, Sheila Leatherman. “He said, ‘All of us have the responsibility to try to do something good in our lifetimes,’” she recalls.

But in his lifetime, Dr. Tayback did more than just “good.” The former biostatistics consultant at Johns Hopkins Bayview Clinical Research Center, adjunct professor in the Department of International Health and Biostatistics at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and first director of the state’s Office on Aging improved the lives and health of people around the world.

He was at the forefront of local issues like infant mortality, teen pregnancy and tobacco risks, Leatherman says. Yet his work also included empowering senior citizens, modernizing health care information systems, building village wells in African countries, improving population planning in India and reducing the spread of communicable diseases.

“He was a remarkable combination of head and heart and a man of great compassion and conviction,” says Leatherman, who is a professor of health policy and management at Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

John Burton, M.D., professor of medicine, agreed. “I always admired him,” Dr. Burton says. “He was a visionary leader who tried to use state resources to improve the care and well-being of Maryland’s seniors. And as a mentor, he helped launch the careers of many young people.”

At age 85, Dr. Tayback remained committed to public health and despite his cancer diagnosis, he continued to participate as part of an international team that studied the nutritional status of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza.

To honor her father’s legacy and dedication to public health, Leatherman founded the Matthew Tayback Memorial Fund in 2004 in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology. The fund pays for innovative lectures about everything from prevention and global health to aging and spirituality.

“Hopkins was an important part of his life,” Leatherman says. “He felt such loyalty to the organization. And I had so much love as a child of his, but also a deep respect as a public health professional for what he achieved in his lifetime.”

She adds, “The spirit of the gift was so Hopkins could remain at the cutting edge of medicine, because that’s what my father was in his time there.”