Decades ago, when Vicki Mann Simms, PhD, wanted to create a center for cancer at UCLA Health that offered complementary therapies — such as mind/body practices, counseling and spiritual support — the medical establishment questioned its value. When she presented the idea at a meeting of the UCLA medical board, they “pretty much immediately” said no, Dr. Mann Simms said.
Except one young hematologist/oncologist: John Glaspy, MD, MPH.
He called shortly after that meeting and told her, “I’m in.”
“I understand what you’re trying to do,” he said, “and I want to do this with you.”
That phone call was how the Simms/Mann UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology began, Dr. Mann Simms said at a recent celebration of the center’s 30th anniversary, where Dr. Glaspy was honored with a namesake endowment in recognition of his commitment to integrative care.
The center provides psychosocial support, nutritional counseling, spiritual care, patient education and logistical assistance at no cost for people receiving cancer treatment at UCLA Health and their loved ones, thanks to philanthropic and institutional support.
“Cancer is like a tornado: it cuts a wide swath through the lives of our patients and their families,” Dr. Glaspy said.
And while treatments have continued to improve, “addressing the big picture of whole lives, as opposed to a few key pixels, is as challenging and just as compelling as anything we do,” he said.
Family origins
Dr. Mann Simms saw firsthand the difference a whole-person approach to care could make after her father was diagnosed with cancer. While he was hospitalized at UCLA Health, she incorporated integrative modalities such as yoga, breathwork, meditation and spiritual guidance into his care.
“Even as his body declined, these experiences gave him a sense of well-being,” she said. “And they empowered our family so that we could feel in control when we were so out of control.”
After her father died, and with Dr. Glaspy on board, Dr. Mann Simms and her husband, Ron Simms, established the Simms/Mann UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology. Its clinical staff includes psychologists, psychiatrists, dietitians, licensed clinical social workers, chaplains and an art therapist.
Expanding reach
Originally housed in Westwood, the center’s services have expanded across Southern and Central California thanks, in part, to an insight from Dr. Glaspy.
He was moving slowly down the 405 Freeway from the San Fernando Valley to Westwood to see a patient, when he looked at the car next to him and saw that patient, stuck in the same traffic. How difficult it must be, Dr. Glaspy thought, to travel long distances when you have cancer.
The experience inspired him and Dennis Slamon, MD, chief of the UCLA Division of Hematology/Oncology, to expand UCLA’s medical oncology care by creating community clinics across the region. Then he approached the Simmses and asked them to do the same with Simms/Mann Centers in all the clinics.
“One patient on the 405 became 21 UCLA cancer clinics in the communities where patients live, and we’re still growing,” Ron Simms said. “That’s John (Glaspy). He doesn’t just see the patient. He sees everything the patient goes through.”
The Simms/Mann Center “has truly become a national model for integrative, whole-person cancer care,” said Johnese Spisso, president of UCLA Health and CEO of the UCLA Hospital System. “For three decades, the dedication of Dr. Glaspy and our health care team, together with the vision and extraordinary generosity of Dr. Victoria Mann Simms and Ron Simms, has helped people affected by cancer live fully beyond their diagnosis. Their enduring partnership continues to transform lives by caring for the whole person and supporting patients and families at every step of the cancer journey.”
UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, MD, PhD, called the center “a model for psychosocial support and a beacon of hope in Los Angeles.”
Committed to cancer care
Dr. Glaspy has been with UCLA for nearly five decades, beginning as a medical student, resident and fellow and continuing as a clinician, researcher and professor. In addition to serving as co-chair of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Dr. Glaspy is director of the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Clinical Research Unit and Simms/Mann Family Foundation Chair in Integrative Oncology.
Dr. Slamon called his colleague “an exceptionally gifted individual.”
“He doesn’t just give clinical care. He doesn’t just do research. He doesn’t just train new trainees,” Dr. Slamon said. “John is one of those rare practitioners of the art of medicine — the entire package.”
Dr. Glaspy said he’s had “the two best gigs in the world” in caring for patients with cancer and training the next generation of oncologists.
“I didn’t have to go searching for life’s … meaning,” he said. “The patients brought it to me and then let me witness and participate in the unfolding of their personal journey in meeting the existential challenge of cancer.”
The endowment announced at the event on Oct. 29, 2026, will support the Simms/Mann Center’s work in perpetuity, and all donations will be matched at 20% by the Simms/Mann Family Foundation, said Margaret Steele, executive director of the UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation.
The gala affair also featured a performance by Grammy-winning composer David Foster.
Though Dr. Glaspy was honored at the 30th anniversary celebration, he said the night was really about recognizing the Simms/Mann Family Foundation “for delivering us to this point, and to discharge our final responsibility to secure the center’s future through endowment,” he said, “thusly enabling our successors at UCLA to walk the talk of high-quality cancer research with deep humanistic roots for as long as it takes until cancer is no more.”
