Dr Priyadarshini Kulkarni of Cipla Palliative Care & Training Centre, Pune has been selected as one of the 22 palliative care physician leaders to participate in the first cohort of the new International Palliative Care Leadership Development Initiative (LDI). Dr Priyadarshini 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 South-east Asia.

Dr Priyadarshini Kulkarni, MBBS, DA has received her training in pain and palliative medicine at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai and at the Calicut Medical College, Kerala. Dr. Priyadarshini Kulkarni 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.

She is a Certified Teacher for EPEC India curriculum. She is a Member of the Executive Committee of the Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPC) and one of the founders and Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Maharashtra Chapter of IAPC. She has published papers and spoken on a variety of subjects pertaining to palliative care, particularly pain management, end-of-life care and communication skills.

“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.”

The Institute for Palliative Medicine (IPM) at San Diego Hospice is internationally recognized for its excellence in palliative care education and research. Dedicated to the relief of suffering through the transformation of health care, it focuses on discovering, demonstrating and disseminating strategies for palliative care in existing health care systems whether here in San Diego or throughout the world. Physicians and healthcare professionals from around the globe come to The Institute for Palliative Medicine to study. Home to the country’s largest palliative medicine physician fellowship programme, the Institute also provides education to more than 1,700 health care students and professionals each year. The Institute helped pioneer the palliative medicine subspecialty approved by the American Board of Medical Specialties in 2006.