Congrats to the 2011 Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Awards

Every January we are excited to celebrate some of the very talented physicians in palliative care with the Hastings Center Cuniff-Dixon Awards.  This year I am particularly excited for many reasons!  First of all my medical director at Kansas City Hospice and Palliative Care, Ann Allegre, MD, FACP, FAAHPM won the senior physician award.  She is a wonderful teacher who has done so much in the Kansas City area to advance palliative care and hospice.  Ann is a dedicated doctor who leads well and brings a variety and depth of experience.


Second, our friend and colleague from GeriPal (Nice new logo and site design!), Dr. Eric Widera won the early career physician award for his compassionate work in blending the fields of geriatrics and palliative care.  I am very excited they recognized his outreach in cofounding GeriPal as this gives good support to the notion that blogging and disseminating good research information can be considered a vital academic pursuit.

Third, Dr. Savithri Nageswaran won the early career award for developing a pediatric palliative care program at my Residency Alma Matter, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center/Brennan's Children's Hospital.  She trained with my wife in pediatrics while we were in North Carolina together and is a fantastic person.  I did not know she was interested in palliative care so now I have a excellent reason to get back in touch with her!

Fourth, Dr. Tony Galanos from Duke won the mid-career physician award.   I am lucky to have worked closely with Dr. Galanos many years ago as he transferred a very complex patient to me so the patient could die at home.  While I can't go into more details here because the case is so unique enough, I can tell you the family was profoundly grateful for the counseling and work Dr. Galanos did in getting them home as a family.

As for the fifth award winner, while I have no formal connection to Dr. Stefan Friedrichsdorf, I can only imagine we may run into each other some day and we will probably accomplish something profound and majestic!

Kudos to this great bunch of awardees, and many thanks to the Hastings Center for their recognition of palliative care excellence.