The NPCRC awards grants to investigators conducting research projects aimed at relieving suffering and achieving the best possible quality of life for patients living with serious illness and their caregivers. The Pilot Project Support Grants are designed for mid-senior investigators to help them develop pilot data for larger externally funded research projects. The Junior Faculty Career Development Awards are designed to provide funding to promising junior investigators to protect their time for research.

In a collaborative parallel initiative with the NPCRC, the American Cancer Society (ACS) also supports pilot projects in palliative care and cancer modeled on the NPCRC’s program. View the ACS Grantees.

2009 Grantees

Kyle R. Allen, DO

Medical Director, Post Acute and Senior Services and Chief Division of Geriatric Medicine
Summa Health System
Dr. Allen, along with his co-investigator Dr. Steven Radwany, will conduct a randomized pilot study to determine the feasibility of a fully powered study to test the effectiveness of an in-home interdisciplinary care management intervention for improving global measures of quality palliative care in new enrollees into Ohio’s community-based long-term care Medicaid waiver program, PASSPORT.

Jane L. Givens, MD, MSCE

Instructor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Hebrew SeniorLife
Dr. Givens will use quantitative and qualitative methods to study the mental health of family members of nursing home residents with advanced dementia.  The goal of her work is to identify potentially modifiable aspects of the nursing home environment associated with better mental health outcomes.

Scott A. Irwin, MD, PhD

Director, Psychiatry Programs
The Institute for Palliative Medicine at San Diego Hospice
Dr. Irwin will assess the feasibility of conducting a randomized, controlled, safety and efficacy trial of rapidly treating major depressive episodes with methylphenidate monotherapy in patients receiving hospice care.

Jennifer W. Mack, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children's Hospital Boston
Dr. Mack will evaluate the relationship between hope and prognostic disclosure among parents of children with advanced cancer.  She will assess the ways physicians address prognosis and hope in their communication with parents, the meanings parents ascribe to hope, and how the interplay between hope and prognosis communication affects end-of-life decision-making.

Ramona Rhodes, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor of Medicine
University of Texas Southern Western
Dr. Rhodes will examine and describe racial differences in the perception of the quality of hospice care by examining hospice-level variability associated with African American perceptions of the quality of hospice services and to identify processes of care that can reduce these disparities.

Alexander K. Smith, MD, MS, MPH

Assistant Professor of Medicine
University of California, San Francisco
Dr. Smith will investigate factors associated with emergency department use at the end of life, and using direct observation, examine communication around goals of care for seriously ill elders seen in the emergency department.