Palliative Medicine is first and foremost about improving the quality of life and care for individuals and their families facing serious illnesses. As an academic division, our mission is to advance the field of Palliative Medicine through excellence in teaching, research and clinical practice. As a new field, we have also been focused on educating our colleagues on how we contribute to the care of patients through the trajectory of their illness. As a division, we strive to become fully integrated into the clinical life of the hospital, clinic and community health care practices. We want to establish a culture of clinical practice that embraces person-centered care, the relief of avoidable suffering, and shared decision-making.

We have been successful in these efforts. The USF Division of Palliative Medicine began in 2008. Since then, we have trained over 40 fellows and assisted in developing the James A. Haley VA, Moffitt Cancer Center, and Tampa General Hospital programs. We prepare learners from multiple disciplines. At TGH alone, we have cared for over 40,000 patients and families in large hospital and outpatient-based practices. We have five full-time faculty members who teach, provide clinical care, and help manage a large interdisciplinary team of providers. While we often see patients in crisis and near the end of life, we are also consulted on patients in many other settings. For example, those being considered for cardiac devices and organ transplants, frail elders facing complex ethical and clinical decisions, and parents of newborns with devastating genetic conditions. As a field, we have demonstrated that the involvement of Palliative Care benefits patients, families, clinicians, hospitals, and healthcare systems.