Dana-Farber physician honored for exemplary end-of-life care and leadership

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Jane deLima Thomas, MD, a palliative care physician and associate director of the Harvard Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is one of five U.S. physicians to receive the 2013 Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Award. Dr. Thomas was honored for her leadership and impact on the development of the field of palliative care through training and modeling excellence in palliative care practice.

"The Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Awards are in their fourth year, and the winners continue to exemplify excellence in doctoring for people with advanced illness," said Richard Payne, MD, Esther Colliflower Director of the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life and a member of the selection committee. "They serve as beacons in their communities by being role models of quality comprehensive care."

The awards were made in three categories: a senior award and a mid-career award of $25,000 each, and three early-career awards of $15,000 apiece. Each recipient has been exemplary in one or more of four areas: medical practice, teaching, research, and community.

"This is very exciting," said Susan Block, MD, chair of the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center. "We are incredibly proud of Jane and appreciative of the Cunniff-Dixon Foundation for providing such a marvelous mechanism to recognize her outstanding work."

The Cunniff-Dixon Foundation, whose mission is to enrich the doctor-patient relationship near the end of life, funds the awards. The Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute that has done groundbreaking work on end-of-life decision-making, administers the awards in collaboration with The Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life, which oversees the selection process.


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