We help you manage every step with sickle cell

People diagnosed with sickle cell live with uncertainty, as crippling symptoms can erupt without warning. Our team offers research-based and evidence-based treatments to help improve your quality of life – and potentially cure your disease. We’re available 24/7 to help when you need us most.

We offer everything you need in one stop: medical inpatient and outpatient treatment, support services to aid in managing day-to-day needs and integrated care with other specialists should complications develop. Beyond that, our doctors develop and test new therapies. Our whole-patient approach means we also help you with the social and mental health impacts of living with a life-long disease – one that isn’t visible to others.

Care for a lifetime

We care for you at every age. Our pediatric hematology team treats young patients. When it’s time, we seamlessly transition child’s care to our adult clinic.

Learn about our pediatric sickle cell program.

Project ECHO: Sharing expertise across Virginia

Our experts connect with providers, clinicians and social workers across Virginia. Health care professionals can learn and collaborate by participating in the Virginia Sickle Cell Disease Extension for Community Health Outcomes (ECHO).

Continuing a pioneering fight to end sickle cell disease

Florence Neal Cooper Smith has been fighting to end sickle cell disease for more than 40 years. Consider joining her — and us — in this important cause.

The Florence Neal Cooper Smith Professorship was founded in 2014 to support aggressive, cutting-edge research to find a cure. Dr. Wally R. Smith, a nationally recognized expert in sickle cell disease, is the inaugural holder of this professorship – the first of its kind to be named for an African-American woman in the U.S. Dr. Smith has led the fight in Virginia to develop new treatment methods and investigate care management.

Support the professorship

To date, we have raised $300,000 for this professorship. Help us meet our goal of raising $1 million to establish an endowed chair and find a cure for sickle cell disease. Choose to direct your gift to the “Florence Neal Cooper Smith Professorship” on the giving form. Support the professorship now.

History of Sickle Cell at VCU Health

In 1972, the Virginia Sickle Cell Anemia Awareness Program was initiated at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) with Florence Cooper Smith and Dr. Robert B Scott at the helm. Today, under Dr. Wally Smith’s leadership, the program has expanded to include treatment, research and support of sickle cell patients in not only central Virginia but throughout the state.