PORTLAND, Ore. — The Regence Foundation announced today it has selected four physicians and a statewide consumer coalition to receive Sojourns Awards.  The award recognizes leaders in the field of palliative care.  Each awardee has designated a nonprofit to receive the $50,000 grant associated with the award to support continued advancements in palliative care. 

Palliative care is an approach to care that brings holistic relief and comfort to seriously ill patients and their families.  The award is part of The Regence Foundation’s Sojourns™ grantmaking program to promote hospital- and community-based palliative care services. Through Sojourns, The Foundation aims to foster best practices, leadership and collaboration that help people with life-threatening and incurable illness to access high-quality palliative care in their own communities.

• Mimi Pattison, M.D., medical director at Franciscan Hospice and Palliative Care in Tacoma, Washington. Dr. Pattison will donate the $50,000 Sojourns Award to the Franciscan Health System’s Foundation to benefit the organization’s hospice and palliative services.
• James Shaw, M.D., director of ethics at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center and Children’s Hospital and medical director at Providence Center for Faith and Healing in Spokane, Washington.  Dr. Shaw will donate the $50,000 Sojourns Award to Providence Center for Faith and Healing, which coordinates palliative care services for Providence in the Spokane community.
• Tanya Lugliani Stewart, M.D., in recognition of her leadership in advancing palliative care over the past six years as the medical director of Adventist Health Hospice in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Stewart will donate the $50,000 Sojourns Award to Adventist Health Hospice in support of its new outpatient palliative care program.
• Sharon Weinstein, M.D., FAAHPM, director of pain medicine and palliative care at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City. Dr. Weinstein will donate the $50,000 Sojourns Award to the Albert A. Weinstein Memorial Palliative Medicine Training Award to support physician training in palliative medicine.
• Idaho End-of-Life Coalition for its leadership in advancing palliative care throughout Idaho. The $50,000 award will be used to increase public understanding and access to hospice and palliative care for people of all ages.

"At The Regence Foundation, our goal is to ensure that people with serious illness have access to palliative care earlier in their disease process," said Michael Alexander, Regence Foundation board chairman.  "The Sojourns Award program is an opportunity to recognize the innovative work of local palliative care leaders who are making that vision possible."