October 2, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minute
How much: $42-million
Who gave it: Carolyn and Matthew Bucksbaum. He is co-founder of General Growth Properties, a Chicago developer of shopping centers. [Editor’s note: The previous sentence corrects an error that suggested Mr. Bucksbaum has died.]
Who got it: The University of Chicago
What the gift will create: The Institute for Clinical Excellence, which will train doctors to improve their relationships with patients
How the gift came about: Ms. Bucksbaum began to wonder why doctors didn’t display the same kind of desire to help patients that they demonstrated when entering medical school. She talked to her internist, Mark Siegler, a professor of medicine and surgery at the university, about how to change the dynamic. She then worked with him for three years to develop a program that would train students to improve their communications with patients and teach faculty members how to help students do a better job of listening to patient concerns.
Why the donor gave: Ms. Bucksbaum says that the university’s interdisciplinary approach and its cohesive campus appealed to her.
What she hopes the gift will achieve: An approach to teaching techniques for improved doctor-patient relationships “that will take hold and be proliferated.”
For details about other new gifts, including a $17.2-million bequest to the U.S. Holocaust Museum, go to http://philanthropy.com/topdonors.
