Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. David Wellis.
Dr. Wellis, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
The San Diego Blood Bank was established in 1950 through the support of the San Diego County Medical Society. In the early 50’s, annual donations averaged 27,000 pints. By 1996, donations reached 86,000 pints annually and we were among the first blood banks in the nation to formalize a designated donor program, which allows patients to select their own donors. Thanks to the U.S. navy, SDBB was the first blood bank to fly 380 pints of blood to New York City on 9/11/01. As time went on, SDBB was designated by the California Emergency Medical Services Authority as the Southern California Regional Operations Center for the distribution of blood to Southern California in the event of a major disaster or act of terrorism in the state of California.
Today, we collect more than 100,000 pints every year and operate 6 full-service regional centers and 12 fully equipped bloodmobiles that travel from San Diego and as far north as Los Angeles. In 2016, SDBB received a sub-award for our role in enrolling participant-volunteers into the national Precision medicine Initiative Cohort Program. What we will learn from this program will extend successes of precision medicine in some cancers and many other diseases. it will also focus on ways to increase an individual’s chances of remaining healthy throughout life.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Blood banks across the country, including SDBB struggle to collect donations, especially during the summer and winter months. During the summer, people go on vacation, and high schools and colleges are on break, thus not hosting blood drives. In winter, people again are traveling, busy and not thinking about donating blood. Schools are out of session again and supplies tend to run low.
We also operate on less than a 1% profit margin, so fundraising is necessary to acquire bloodmobiles, blood transportation vehicles, capital equipment and more.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
The San Diego Blood Bank is a certified 501c3 non-profit organization, serving hospitals in the San Diego, Imperial, Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Our mission is saving lives with quality blood services in partnership with the community. We are also the primary provider of blood to Rady Children’s Hospital – San Diego.
We are the safety net for our regional blood needs. Frozen blood laboratories are now operated to accommodate storage of frequently used and rare blood types, and for patients who wish to donate blood for their own future use. We also offer continuing education for the blood bank community.
We are the only LOCAL blood bank in San Diego, providing excellent products and customer services to our hospital partners.
What sets us apart, especially, is our increasing participation in research.
Contact Info:
- Address: 3636 Gateway Center Ave, Ste 100
- Website: www.SanDiegoBloodBank.org
- Phone: 6192966393
- Email: cvangonka@sandiegobloodbank.org
- Instagram: San Diego Blood Bank
- Facebook: San Diego Blood Bank
- Twitter: San Diego Blood Bank
- Yelp: San Diego Blood Bank
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