A conversation with Robert A. Milch, MD, FACS. Dr. Milch is the inaugural winner of the Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Established Physician Award for excellence in clinical care for patients near the end of life and national leadership in palliative care.
At the awards ceremony in Buffalo, NY, he spoke with Andy Baxter, founder of the Cunniff-Dixon Foundation, and Thomas H. Murray, PhD, President & C.E.O. of The Hastings Center.
Bio
Andy Baxter
Andy Baxter is founder of The Cunniff-Dixon Foundation, which exists to improve the art of medicine and surgery for patients who are near or at the end of their lives.
Dr. Robert A. Milch
Robert A. Milch, MD, FACS is a physician at The Center for Hospice and Palliative Care, near Buffalo, NY. Dr. Milch, a surgeon, has been a leader in hospice and palliative care for more than 30 years, almost since its inception in the United States.
Thomas H. Murray
Thomas H. Murray is President of The Hastings Center. Dr. Murray was formerly the Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was also the Susan E. Watson Professor of Bioethics. He is a founding editor of the journal Medical Humanities Review, and is on the editorial boards of The Hastings Center Report; Human Gene Therapy; Politics and the Life Sciences; Cloning, Science, and Policy; Medscape General Medicine; Teaching Ethics; Journal of Bioethical Inquiry and the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. He served as President of the Society for Health and Human Values and of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.
Home or hospital for relieving physical and emotional suffering of dying persons. In patients expected to live only months or weeks, hospice care offers an alternative to aggressive life-prolonging measures, which often only increase discomfort and isolation. Hospices provide a sympathetic environment in which prevention (not just control) of physical pain has top priority, along with patients' emotional and spiritual needs. Care may be provided in a health facility, on an outpatient basis, or at home.