Director’s Welcome

Thank you for your interest in the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life. As you explore our Web pages, I trust you will find valuable information about the Institute that also is helpful to you, your family, or your organization or program.

The Institute, born in 2000, has a bright future. We have facilitated and conducted important conversations with diverse religious, spiritual, patient and advocacy communities concerned about access to and quality of palliative and end-of-life care. Our trademark interdisciplinary educational conferences include: Crossing Over Jordan © and the Last Miles of the Way Home © for African-American and other communities of color; Magnified and Sanctified © for Jewish communities, and Suffer the Children © for children who are seriously ill or dying.

In the past five years many exciting developments have occurred in palliative and end-of life-care. The use of hospice services by Americans continues to increase, with nearly one million patients and families using hospice care in 2004, an all time high. Hospital-based palliative care teams continue to grow, expanding basic care to focus on emotional and spiritual well being while simultaneously providing the best that state-of-the-art curative medical treatments can offer.

However, private and public funding for palliative and end-of-life care initiatives has not kept pace with these important accomplishments. There is an ever-present need for renewed engagement of patients, families, the public, health care professionals, policy makers and payers to assure that faith-based institutions and other important societal organizations focus on the needs of the most vulnerable members of our world. We envision the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life as a force to give a moral voice to the needs of the seriously ill and dying, an environment in which interdisciplinary scholarship can flourish, and a dynamic laboratory in which practical application of knowledge can be accomplished to transform care of the seriously ill and dying.

With our new tag line, we describe the Institute as “a catalyst for growth and transformation and a global resource to improve care for those at life’s end.” At the core of our mission and vision is the creation of knowledge and rediscovery of wisdoms about the needs of seriously ill and dying people and their families. You can learn more about our strategic vision and guiding principles for action on these Web pages. A graphic model (right) of our re-conceptualized Institute also is available.

We are blessed to have wonderful space in the Westbrook Building at Duke Divinity School. This space will provide a magnificent resource for new and expanded programs and recruitment of faculty and staff to accomplish our mission and vision.

Again, thank you for your interest in the Institute. Please do not hesitate to contact me or other faculty and staff of the Institute by telephone or e-mail if we may be of assistance.

Grace and Peace,

Richard Payne, M.D.
Professor of Medicine and Divinity
Esther Colliflower Director, Institute on Care at the End of Life