The 25-year celebration for Duke Palliative Care took place on May 19 and brought out hundreds of people to the Karsh Alumni and Visitors Center to celebrate the achievements and partnerships of Duke Palliative Care, bid farewell to the retiring Dr. Tony Galanos, and share a vision for the future of the Duke Center for Palliative Care.
In the words of Dr. Galanos, founder of the service in 1998, “We have gone from making the case to being the case”.
The event kicked off with a keynote speech from Mike Krzyzewski, more famously known as Coach K, followed by a panel discussion from faculty and fellowship alumni.
"We reminisced about when the soil was not so fertile for such a clinical service, to the sweat equity that was put in to make it happen, to the hiring of our first NP in 2003, the first fellow in 2005, the corounding model in Oncology in 2011 and so forth," recalls Dr. Galanos. "It was clear by the end of the night the firm foundation on which today’s department is based and is thriving."
The celebration also highlighted the former fellows and how they have contributed to the field and to the academy. Their most tangible legacy, the outstanding fellows, and the mark they are making on the field.
The Journey Continues
Today, Duke Palliative Care has consult teams at all four hospitals, four fellows each year including a pediatrics track. They are truly interdisciplinary and have a robust outpatient program under Chris Jones, MD, MBA that is growing at a feverish pace. In short, the providers in the health system understand now that Palliative Care is not end-of-life care only – that it can be utilized at any point in the illness trajectory – and that is the ultimate in pain and symptom management. In addition, the Advance Care Planning/Goals of Care initiative has been wildly successful and this has led to better communication between patients, their families, and their primary teams.
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