Giving the Gift of Life

Jaime has spent most of his life watching out for the welfare of others. He served in the military for 10 years before he began working at UCLA 25 years ago. In his job, he makes sure every individual is greeted with a welcome smile and treated with respect while they give blood and platelet donations.

What is your job at the Blood & Platelet Center?
I coordinate the apheresis donor collections for the Blood & Platelet Center. I recently assumed additional responsibilities for developing new processes and procedures that demonstrate excellence in customer service and public relations, promote a positive professional image, and encourage all to donate blood and platelets. We have a great team here and we just received accreditation from the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB). We passed with flying colors for our procedures and quality-control standards and for our customer service.

How long have you worked at UCLA?
I started 25 years ago as a coordinator in what was called the Clinical Lab Blood Bank in CHS. After a few years supervising the blood bank lab assistants, we realized that we needed to have a platelet center as well, so I became coordinator of the new platelet center on the A level of UCLA Medical Center. We started with four to eight donors a day, and now average 20 to 25 donors a day. This has allowed UCLA to become almost completely self-sufficient with our platelet inventory; the Red Cross, our main provider, supplies the rest of our needs.

What is your background?
During my 10-year military tenure, I went to Fort Sam Houston Academy of Health Sciences in San Antonio, Texas to take a oneyear advanced laboratory technician course to study microbiology, hematology, immunology and all facets of clinical laboratory science. After 10 years at Dwight David Eisenhower Medical Center Clinical Labs in Fort Gordon, Georgia, I applied for a lab-assistant position at UCLA and got the job. I wanted to continue to help others after serving in the military. I realized that working at the blood bank and Blood and Platelet Center brought me great joy.

What is most rewarding about your job?
I enjoy interacting with our donors and I am humbled by their commitment to donate so that others can benefit. In my position, I have a chance to build relationships with the donors and recipients, and consider many of them my friends. I always tell everyone that we need to make donors feel special and in busy times it’s easy to lose focus on what we do here. Simply saying “thank you” goes a long way. I am also honored working alongside my co-workers and seeing their high level of workmanship and professionalism.

What inspires donors to donate?
One of our really great donors is an excellent example of why I love my job. He has been donating his blood and platelets for the last 12 years and travels from Altadena to donate to UCLA. He initially came to UCLA to donate to a little boy who had leukemia and was being treated at UCLA. He could donate to blood banks closer to home, but he chooses to come here because he enjoys our company. Since the very beginning, he had a personal goal to donate 300 times and he recently met that goal. Every time he comes to our center, he brings bagels for the staff, and when he reached his 300th donation, he threw a huge, catered party for the entire staff. I don’t consider him a donor, he’s a friend and that’s how I see everyone who walks through these doors.

I also get many opportunities to meet the recipients of these donations. We had a patient who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease and given only a few months to live. We established a relationship with his wife who has become a donor. It’s been a few years and the patient is still going strong, visiting us every Christmas.

What do you find challenging?
Getting people to come donate and letting them know how important it is to donate is challenging at times. We go out into the community in our bloodmobiles to inspire people to donate. We hope our new site at Ackerman Union on campus will encourage the student population to donate. It’s so important for people to know that their one donation can save multiple lives.

What personal hobbies do you enjoy doing outside of work?
I love traveling, hiking, playing soccer and coaching for the American Youth Soccer Organization. I am also a volunteer for Earthwatch, an organization focused on saving endangered species and educating the world to be ecologically and culturally responsible for the environment in which we live.