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Leading Expert in Pain Relief to Direct Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life
Richard Payne |
Richard Payne, an internationally known expert in the areas of pain relief, care for those near death, oncology and neurology, has been named the Colliflower Director of Duke University's Institute on Care at the End of Life, Duke Divinity School Dean L. Gregory Jones announced Feb. 4.
Payne, who will join the institute this spring, has led the Pain and Palliative Care Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City since 1998. Payne directs the program's clinical and rehabilitation services as well as research and training programs.
The Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life was launched in 2000 and has been sustained since then by gifts totaling $16.5 million arranged by Hugh A. Westbrook, a 1970 divinity school graduate and pioneer in hospice care. The institute works to improve research, education and practice in the care of those near death. Activities have included academic research and teaching; practical training for health-care providers, pastors and other caregivers; and providing information and educational programs for the wider public.
"Richard Payne is extraordinarily well-positioned to lead the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life," said Dean Jones. "He combines the stature, wisdom, creativity, passion and leadership to build on the institute's current strengths and lead it in exciting new ways. He will continue the institute's focus on faith communities and on diverse populations, especially African-Americans, while also extending its reach in teaching, research and outreach."
Based at Duke Divinity School, the institute brings together a broad spectrum of disciplines, schools and professions to study how best to care for those in the last stage of life. It involves physicians and nurses at Duke Medical Center, theologians and ethicists from the divinity school, humanities scholars from Duke's arts and sciences departments, pastors and other caregivers from across the nation, and social work faculty from the nearby University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, among others.
"I see this as the opportunity of a lifetime - to build a unique program to create new knowledge about how we understand human suffering and care for the terminally ill, chronically ill and dying," Payne said. "The enormous intellectual resources of this university will interface with our increasingly sophisticated medical knowledge to create a resource for the world that will improve care for the dying.
"I also want the institute to serve as a platform for creating public policy and to serve in an advocacy role for patients and their families facing serious and terminal illness."
Few physicians can match Payne's credentials in the fields most important to the institute, said R. Sanders "Sandy" Williams, dean of Duke's School of Medicine. In addition to authoring or co-authoring more than 200 peer-reviewed papers, reviews, book chapters and abstracts, Payne also has lectured around the world on research and clinical aspects of pain treatment.
"Dr. Payne is highly regarded as an international leader in pain management and palliative care," Williams said. "He combines advanced skills as a clinician with the moral integrity and spiritual force that will make him an exemplary leader for the Institute on Care at the End of Life.
"His joint appointment in the Divinity School and in the School of Medicine will inspire students and colleagues to examine more closely, and to understand more fully, the connections between the medical and spiritual dimensions of how patients and their families face this difficult but inevitable stage of human existence."
Educated at Yale University and Harvard Medical School, Payne has served on numerous panels and advisory committees, many at the national level. He has given expert testimony to the Congressional Black Caucus National Brain Trust and the President's Cancer Panel in the area of healthcare access disparities in cancer care, palliative medicine and end-of-life care. He also has received a Distinguished Service Award from the American Pain Society, of which he is president; the Humanitarian Award from the Urban Resources Institute; and the Janssen Excellence in Pain Award.
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