Innovations in End-of-Life Care
an international journal of leaders in end-of-life care

Anna Du Pen, ARNP, MN

Ms. Anna Du Pen is a masters-prepared oncology nurse with eighteen years of experience in managing cancer-related pain. Anna Du Pen earned her BS in Nursing, her Masters in Nursing, and her Nurse Practitioner Certificate from the University of Washington School of Nursing in Seattle. She worked with and later married Dr. Stuart Du Pen, the developer of the Du Pen Epidural Catheter, and they are now referred to fondly around the country as 'Du Pen and Du Pen.' She has written many articles and book chapters on pain. Her areas of expertise include pain assessment, the use of algorithm for pain management, and pain and symptom management at the end of life.

Anna is a member of the American Pain Society, the International Association for the Study of Pain, and the Oncology Nursing Society. She currently represents the Oncology Nursing Society on the Provider Education Committee of the 'Last Acts' Task Force, a multidisciplinary working group on end-of-life care sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Ms. Du Pen's current endeavors include consulting with institutions around the country on the newly drafted Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care organizations' standards on pain management.

Stuart Du Pen, MD

Dr. Stuart Du Pen is an anesthesiologist specializing in pain management, with over thirty years of experience. His interests include management of neuropathic pain syndromes. He lectures widely on epidural analgesia and he is the principle investigator on two NCl studies designed to enhanced education of doctors and nurses about pain, and improve pain outcomes. Stuart earned his M.D. at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, and served as a Clinical Instructor for the University of Washington's Department of Anesthesiology for nearly two decades. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on pain management, and he is a member of the International Association for the Study of Pain, the American Pain Society, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the American Neuromodulation Society. In 1987 he developed the first FDA approved long-term epidural catheter for cancer pain management. In the early 90's he and Ms. Du Pen (then a home care nurse) had many heated discussions about selection criteria for the epidural catheter. The cancer pain algorithm was initially conceptualized as a template for ensuring that optimization of all conservative management was accomplished before interventional techniques were considered.