Toluwalase Ajayi, M.D.

Bio

Dr. Tolúwalàṣẹ “Làṣẹ” Ajayi, MD FAAP (she/her), is the Interim Medical Director of Palliative Care at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego. She is also a physician in the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics and the Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology, and Palliative Care in the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Diego. She serves as the Program Director of the joint UC San Diego & Scripps Health Hospice & Palliative Medicine Fellowship and the Digital Health Equity Lead in the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Center for Health Innovation.

Dr. Ajayi is dedicated to expanding the benefits of palliative care across all ages, as well as improving communication with seriously ill patients. She has a specific research interest in leveraging advances in digital medicine to health disparities, access to care and improve pain assessment and care. She is particularly interested in how palliative care can improve the quality of life for those with chronic pediatric disease who are now living well into adulthood. Her research focuses on opportunities at the intersection of novel digital medicine technologies and unmet needs in maternal fetal health as well as pain and palliative medicine. She hopes to further investigate how mobile health can provide real time, patient reported outcomes that can be rapidly integrated into individualized clinical plans to improve health related quality of life and increase participation of pregnant women and their newborn in clinical research. With these efforts, she hopes to diversify the standard of care provided to pregnant women and augment how we manage the symptoms prevalent in serious illness, with the goal of reducing health disparities across the life span.