Focus AreasThe Project on Death in America's Faculty Scholars Program was established to identify outstanding faculty and clinicians committed to work in end-of-life care, and to support them in disseminating existing models of good care, developing new models for improving the care of the dying, and developing new approaches to the education of healthcare professionals about the care of dying patients and their families. The program promoted the visibility and prestige of clinicians committed to this area and enhanced their effectiveness as academic leaders, role models, and mentors for future generations of health professionals.
Participants were offered the knowledge and skills necessary to develop innovative programs in clinical care, research, education, and advocacy and to take leadership roles at their institutions and nationally. The program aimed to develop an intellectually vibrant, mutually supportive, and cross-fertilizing network of colleagues involved in multiple facets of work with the dying and their survivors. Interaction among the scholars fostered new interdisciplinary approaches to key issues related to death in America.
In 2002, the Project on Death in America selected the last cohort of nine faculty scholars, bringing the total to 87. They included doctors, researchers, and nurses with palliative care subspecialties in education, gerontology, psychiatry, pediatrics, oncology, and emergency medicine.
