Charting Your Course : Acknowledgements : DHMC NCCC

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Norris Cotton Cancer Center
Pain and Palliative Care Service

Palliative medicine is a relatively new area of specialization in American medicine that focuses on the total care of patients with life-threatening illnesses such as cancer. It emphasizes symptom management and addresses the emotional, social, and spiritual concerns through serious illness and at the end of life. Palliative medicine seeks to improve the quality of the lives of the seriously ill, and to encourage the completion of important activities such as expressing love, gratitiude, and forgiveness.

DHMC's Palliative Medicine Service is a program that empowers patients and their families to take full advantage of clinical and other palliative madicine services from the moment of a terminal diagnosis. There is no better goal than to achieve the best quality of life for patients and their families so they can live each day fully.

We provide for the medical, spiritual, psychological, and social needs of patients and their families in the DHMC community who are facing life-threatening illness. We conduct research to improve the care of patients and their families, emphasizing coordination with community providers, home health agencies, long term care facilities, and hospice organizations.

"We can grow stronger within ourselves and closer to those we love as we confront the challenges of dying with honesty, caring, and commitment."
- Ira Byock, MD. "Dying Well"

DHMC's Palliative Medicine team:
Marie Bakitas Whedon, ARNP
Frances Brokaw, MD
Gilbert Fanciullo, MD, Director
Gisele Girault, MD
Diane Palac, MD
Thomas Prendergast, MD
Robert Santulli, MD
Karen Skalla, ARNP

For more information about the Department of Palliative Medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, please contact us.
Palliative Medicine Service
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
One Medical Center Drive
Lebanon, NH 03756

General Information: (603) 650-5000
Hospice Information: (802) 295-2834
Hospice Referrals: (800) 575-5162
Website: www.dartmouth-hitchcock.org

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This content is derived from the "Charting Your Course Seminars: A Whole Person Approach To Living With Cancer", provided by Norris Cotton Cancer Center.
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