The Art of Medicine Near the End of Life

 Robert A. Milch, MD, FACS, a surgeon who helped found Hospice Buffalo, one of the  nation’s early hospices, received the inaugural Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Award for leadership in care near the end of life at a ceremony at The Center for Hospice & Palliative Care near Buffalo on January 20. (In photo, left to right, Thomas Murray, president of The Hastings Center; Dr. Milch; Andy Baxter, founder of The Cunniff-Dixon Foundation.)         

“When our work has been its finest, together we have seen, in those entrusted to our care, emergence of the best in human nature – the courage, grace, dignity, and love of which one is capable,” Dr. Milch said in accepting the award. “To the extent that we are able to play a part in that wonder, helping to heal even when we can not cure, tending the wounds of body and spirit, we are ourselves elevated and transformed.”
 
Dr. Milch has been a leader in hospice and palliative care for more than 30 years, almost since its inception in the United States. He came to Hospice Buffalo as the medical director in 1977 on a voluntary basis, while working in a large surgical practice. He helped to shape the organization, as well as develop the field of hospice care overall. According to one nurse who worked with him, “Dr. Milch was not only every patient’s hospice physician, he was also their friend.”

The awards were given by the Cunniff-Dixon Foundation, whose mission is to enrich the doctor-patient relationship at the end of life, in partnership with The Hastings Center, which has done pioneering work on end of life decision-making. Dr. Milch received one of four awards, the established physician award of $50,000. Three other physicians will receive early career awards, in the amount of $15,000 each. These physicians are Elisabeth Potts Dellon, MD, MPH, of the University of North Carolina; Jeffrey N. Stoneberg, DO, of San Diego Hospice and The Institute for Palliative Medicine; and Eytan Szmuilowicz, MD, of Northwestern Medical Center in Chicago.