 |
Roberta “Bobbie” Newsham |
Roberta “Bobbie” Newsham of Ashland died in 2002 after struggling with diabetes for 46 of her 59 years. Throughout her struggle, her focus was on beating the disease. “She always talked about finding a cure, and that was really a passion of hers,” said her daughter, Leigh Ann Ochsner of Waverly. “We wanted the money to go somewhere where we knew that they would try to find a cure,” she said. UNMC was an obvious choice for Ochsner and her family.
The fund will support faculty and student research projects and the department of surgery in the College of Medicine.
“This gift from the Newsham family highlights the ever growing need for research in the area of diabetes,” said James Armitage, M.D., dean of the UNMC College of Medicine. “The Roberta J. Newsham Memorial Diabetes Research Fund will support faculty and student research projects which will work toward easing and ultimately curing diabetes. Gifts like this are important because they not only highlight the work that we do here at UNMC, but also the valuable relationships that are formed in the process.”
As a model patient, Newsham forged friendships and left positive impressions during her care at UNMC. Newsham was always interested in knowing as much as she could about diabetes. “She always had a thirst to learn more in order to take better care of herself,” said Sue Miller, kidney and pancreas transplant coordinator at The Nebraska Medical Center.
“Mom was excited about the technology that was up and coming to regulate diabetes,” Ochsner said.
Islet cells were among the science that Newsham was particularly interested in, she said. The medical center is in the process of starting an islet program, Miller said. Rather than a full organ transplant, one can receive an islet cell transplant where the islet cells that produce insulin are isolated in a donor, then infused into liver. This procedure eliminates some of the problems that are involved with transplanting an entire organ.
Gifts to the Roberta J. Newsham Memorial Diabetes Research Fund may be sent to the University of Nebraska Foundation, Attn: Amy Volk, 8712 West Dodge, Omaha, NE 68114. Checks should be made payable to the University of Nebraska Foundation.