Personal Fundraiser

The 3 Wishes Project is a palliative care initiative that aims to improve the end-of-life experience for patients, families, and healthcare team members by attempting to fulfill wishes for a dying patient and their loved ones.

We hope to:

1. For patients: dignify, honor, and celebrate the patient’s life by personalizing the end-of-life experience.
2. For families: humanize the dying experience and foster positive memories.
3. For healthcare team members: foster patient- and family-centered care.

Examples of wishes fulfilled include fingerprints in keychains, keepsakes with a loved one’s heart rhythm tracing, personalized word clouds, handprints, bedside music concerts, hospital room decorations, pet therapy visits, and even hosting a wedding ceremony.

"This is the best gift you could give me. I'm going to cherish this forever. This is something from when she was alive that I will always keep from my Mom."  - Family member referencing a keepsake made with her mother’s heart rhythm and locks of her hair 

“A young mother selecting a quilt to wrap her children with love after her death…handprints of a dying patient overlaid on their child’s handprint…these types of acts inject humanity and love into the most difficult of circumstances. It’s a gift for our patients, but also for our team members."  - ICU physician

The 3 Wishes Project at UW Medicine is provided at no cost to patients and families and is supported by UW Medical Center and generous donations from families and individuals who support the mission of this work. We hope to raise $10,000 - with an average cost of only $15/patient, this would fulfill over 1,500 patient wishes. 

“We want to shift the paradigm from asking what’s the matter with the patient to what matters most to the patient.” - Thanh Neville, MD (UCLA Health, 3 Wishes Project Medical Director and Co-Founder)

The 3 Wishes Project started in an intensive care unit at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Ontario, Canada in 2013 to help improve the end-of-life experience for patients, families, and healthcare team members.

For more information about the 3 Wishes Project at UW Medicine, click here.