MEDIA ADVISORY: Buster Posey to Visit UCSF Patients in Honor of Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month
San Francisco Giants’ catcher Buster Posey will be meeting with patients at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco this week, in honor of National Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month, which runs through September.
The sports luminary, father of 5-year-old twins and pediatric cancer advocate, will chat with young patients, pose for pictures and sign autographs before making private bedside visits.
The visit marks a Bay Area-wide effort initiated by UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals to raise awareness for pediatric cancer, the number one cause of disease death in children past infancy in the United States. Throughout the month, baseball teams and government leaders in both Oakland and San Francisco are supporting the awareness effort through a variety of events, including Posey’s visit, the Giants’ donation of tickets to its Sept. 17 game to pediatric cancer survivors and their families, and the lighting of San Francisco City Hall in gold on Friday evening.
When: Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, from 11 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Where: UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, 1975 Fourth St.
Who: Buster Posey, San Francisco Giants catcher and wife Kristen Posey
- Dick Vitale (“Dickie V.”), ESPN basketball sportscaster
- Robert Goldsby, MD, pediatric oncologist, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco
- Kim Scurr, Vice President, Operations, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco
Why: An estimated 15,780 children and adolescents under 19 were diagnosed with pediatric cancer in 2014, according to the National Cancer Institute. The average age of cancer diagnosis in children is 6 years, vs. 67 in adults, representing a loss of 71 years of life. Pediatric cancers receive approximately 4 percent of all cancer funding from the National Cancer Institute.
Media must confirm attendance prior to the event. Please contact Suzanne Leigh at (415) 680-5133; e-mail: [email protected]
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise. It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises two top-ranked hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, and other partner and affiliated hospitals and healthcare providers throughout the Bay Area.