Appointment

Indian physician selected for international leadership program

Dr Priyadarshini Kulkarni of Cipla Palliative Care and Training Centre, Pune has been selected as one of twenty-two palliative care physician leaders to participate in the first cohort of the new International Palliative Care Leadership Development Initiative (LDI). Kulkarni will be receiving mentoring and opportunities to enhance leadership skills that will advance the development and delivery of palliative care in India, Asia and worldwide.

Led by the Institute for Palliative Medicine at San Diego Hospice (IPM) in San Diego California, this precedent-setting Initiative is being funded by a grant from the International Palliative Care Initiative, Open Society Institute; with collaborative support provided by the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland and The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. Additional support has also been received from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

The International Palliative Care Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) is a two year program to develop leadership skills among international palliative care physicians in resource-limited countries around the world. The theme of the new Leadership Development Initiative at IPM is "Growing Global Leaders…Advancing Palliative Care." The Initiative team anticipates that the physicians who participate in the LDI will become the next generation of national, regional and global palliative care leaders. Participants have been selected from among known expert palliative care physicians in Africa, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Kulkarni received her training in pain and palliative medicine at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai and at the Calicut Medical College, Kerala. She is the Medical Director at Cipla Palliative Care and Training Centre, which provides palliative care cancer patients. Here, she heads a team that provides holistic palliative care, totally free of cost.

"Physicians like Dr Priyadarshini will be the future leaders of palliative care worldwide," said Dr Frank D. Ferris, Director of IPM's International Programs, "They are the generation that will develop delivery systems for palliative care to populations who desperately need it. It is not too dramatic to say our participants have the potential to change the world's health care systems by addressing the suffering of people with advanced illnesses."