The Hastings Center and The Cunniff-Dixon Foundation announce three new awards to honor clinicians for outstanding care provided to patients nearing the end of life, based on technical competence, personal integrity, empathic dialogue with patients, active engagement with the family and loved ones, practical and heartfelt communication regarding advance directives, and compassionate alleviation of suffering. The awards were created and are made possible through the generosity of the Cunniff-Dixon Foundation and in partnership with The Hastings Center.

The  Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Awards have long recognized five outstanding physicians. The year 2022 marks the addition of a sixth physician award: The Dr. Richard Payne Leadership Award to honor physicians who work with vulnerable and/or underserved populations. This award is named for Dr. Richard Payne, an internationally acclaimed leader in palliative care who at the time of his death was a Trustee of the Cunniff Dixon Foundation and member of The Hastings Center’s Board of Directors. For many years, Dr. Payne led the selection committee for The Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Awards and always sought to recognize those who represented what he loved to call “good doctoring.” 

Click here to complete a Dr. Richard Payne Award nomination.

The year 2022 also marks the first year for the semi-annual Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Nursing Awards. One of the two awards will go to a nurse  for providing optimal end-of-life care in a hospital setting and the other one will go to a nurse working within hospice and home care.

Here is the form to make a Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Nursing Awards nomination.   

All eight awards will be offered in 2022. Nominations are now open; the deadline to submit nominations is January 31, 2022. Review the nomination process here.         

“The Hastings Center and Cunniff-Dixon Foundation are proud to recognize such honorable and selfless leaders in the field of palliative care medicine and nursing,” said Mildred Solomon, President of The Hastings Center. 

“These consummate professionals are going above and beyond providing the kind of quality care near the end of life that we all wish for ourselves and our loved ones. It’s a privilege to recognize them,” said Andy Baxter, Founder of the Cunniff-Dixon Foundation.

The five original physician awards, which have been given since 2010, recognize a senior physician, a mid-career physician, and three early-career physicians who have shown their care of patients to be extraordinary, a model of good medicine for other physicians, and a great benefit in advancing the importance of end-of-life-care as a basic part of the doctor-patient relationship. The awards consist of $25,000 each for the senior and mid-career physicians and $15,000 each for the early-career physicians. The Dr Richard Payne Leadership Award and Hastings Cunniff-Dixon Nursing Awards will provide $25,000 for each of  the honorees.

The Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Awards selection committee is chaired by Kathleen Foley, MD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and includes Anthony N. Galanos, MD, Duke University School of Medicine; Rodney Tucker, MD, UAB Center for Palliative and Supportive Care; Zara Cooper, MD, MSc, FACS, Kessler Director of the Center for Surgery and Public Health in the Department of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and Diane Meier, MD, Mt Sinai Hospital and Center to Advance Palliative Care.

The Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Nursing Awards selection committee is chaired by Betty Ferrell, PhD, City of Hope Medical Center, and includes Ashley Leak Bryant, PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Meg Campbell, PhD, Wayne State University; Nessa Coyle, PhD, a palliative care and clinical ethics consultant; Billy Rosa, PhD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; and Cynda Hylton Rushton, PhD, Johns Hopkins University. 

For more information, contact:

Susan Gilbert

Director of Communications

The Hastings Center

845-424-4040 x244