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Thomas H. Murray: Our hope is that The Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Awards
will begin to change the culture by calling attention to the outstanding work
of physicians. The reward structures of American medicine tend to go towards
the doctors who do a lot of procedures. But for patients and families
some of the most profound and important interactions with physicians are
going to be around end of life.
Andy Baxter: The purpose of the award really is to recognize physicians who have
demonstrated a serious commitment to the field of palliative care
and medical care near the end of life.
Richard Payne: The Duke Institute on Care at the End of LIfe
works with The Hastings Center and with the Cunniff-Dixon Foundation.
We've organized a review process. And so we make sure that
all nominated individuals meet those criteria, and then we very carefully
select the awardees.
Elisabeth Potts Dellon: It's really our job to be sure that we find a way to support children and their
families through that. So I think that while the time isn't readily there
I think we have to make it.
Eytan Szmuilowicz: Part of my decision to go into palliative care crystalized as an intern.
I was taking care -- I remember a series of older patients on the general medical service
and I felt like we were doing a lot of things to them, without necessarily asking
them what they wanted or would have wanted at the end of their life or at that period of their life.
I felt like there was a lot of suffering that we weren't addressing.
Jeffrey N. Stoneberg: I really felt when I was in a position to try to prolong life for as much as possible
despite what the quality of life might be -- I did not find that satisfying.
I felt like I was delaying the inevitable and slowing down somebody's death,
but they were still going to die, and along that path I was going to
do procedures and send them for studies that were creating pain and discomfort,
and I thought there must be a better way to treat these patients.
Dellon: We do a lot, I think, in pediatrics of protecting the child and
that's something that the field of pediatric palliative care is working very ***;
trying to find that balance of protecting the child from things that are
stressful, sad, and difficult about having a chronic disease -- but also really
having a voice and having a say in what kinds of treatment they'll choose.
Robert A. Milch: Hospice and palliative care is a beacon.
And it's a refuge.
Szmuilowicz: Palliative care is practiced -- needs to be practiced -- as part of a team.
There is no way that I would be here or we would be here without our teams.
Milch: There's a difference between treating a disease and dealing with a patient's illness.
Diseases, we teach, occur in organs and illnesses occur in people.
The thing's that's always been most rewarding for me is to be able to treat illness.
Stoneberg: If we have the opportunity to impact our culture and change the way we
look at the end of life, I think that we should grasp every opportunity to do so.