Mt. Sinai starts national pain management center

The Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City has created a new national center to promote pain management. The Center to Advance Palliative Care was established thanks in large part to a four-year, $4.7-million grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, NJ.

"People are learning to expect more from the care they get at the end of life. Young doctors are learning that technical medical care isn’t enough, that pain and suffering have to be addressed, too," says Rosemary Gibson, senior program officer at the foundation. "We need hospital environments that support these changes, and I can easily see the day when providing good palliative care [will] become the standard of care for every hospital in our country. Today, a hospital wouldn’t dream of not having an infection control program. In a few years, they won’t imagine not providing good, palliative care of the seriously ill, as well as the dying."

The center will offer a how-to manual on establishing a hospital-based palliative care program, a national directory of palliative care programs, case studies on ways to institutionalize palliative care programs, a comprehensive Web site at www.capcmssm.org, a speakers’ bureau, policy papers on financing and other issues affecting palliative care, referral to fellowship and other training opportunities for physicians and nurses, and a national educational conference.