David Casarett, MD, MA, chief of Palliative Care and professor of medicine, recently announced the creation of three leadership roles in Duke Palliative Care, which will position the program to take advantage of the numerous clinical, research, and education opportunities in Duke Health.
Tony Galanos, MD, professor of medicine (Geriatrics) will be stepping into the role of Clinical Director. In that capacity, he will be responsible for standardizing clinical palliative care practices across Duke Health, mentoring junior faculty, developing clinical protocols and procedures in collaboration with other departments and services, and strengthening relationships among Duke Palliative care leads and with key partners in Duke Health.
Dr. Galanos has a long history of clinical care, research, and education at Duke. He was responsible for the creation of the palliative care service in 1998, and been instrumental in its growth and expansion over the past two decades.
Jason Webb, MD, will serve as the Director of Education. His responsibilities will include oversight of undergraduate and graduate medical training, including curricula for learners, as well as the development of innovative approaches to palliative care education.
Jason is a Medical Instructor in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and is the Associate Program Director for the Duke Palliative Medicine Fellowship Training Program. Jason has been at Duke for 10 years, beginning with his combined residency training in internal medicine and psychiatry. His interests include outpatient integrated palliative medicine, psycho-oncology, global palliative care, and medical education, with a developing interest in the integration of social media into curriculum design.
Karen Steinhauser, PhD, will serve as the Director of Research. In this new role, she will coordinate collaborative research efforts in the program, with a special emphasis on those projects that leverage Duke’s strengths to take the principles of palliative care beyond the bedside and into broader populations.
Dr. Steinhauser received her doctoral training in sociology at Duke, where she specialized in medical sociology and aging. She is an Associate Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine, and her primary interests are end-of-life care, medical sociology and patient-provider relationships. Specifically, she investigates the composition and measurement of the quality of life for patients and their families at the end of life.