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

Richard Payne, MD

A product of the public high school system in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Dr. Payne went on to graduate from Yale University in 1973 and Harvard Medical School in 1977. He completed post-graduate training in internal medicine at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and in neurology at the New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical College. He completed a fellowship in Neuro-Oncology and Pain Management at Memorial, subsequently joining the faculty there. Dr. Payne was then invited to join the faculty of the University of Cincinnati Medical School in 1987. In 1992, Dr. Payne became Chief of the Pain and Symptom Management Section and Professor of Neurology at the University of Texas, Department of Neuro-Oncology, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. He then returned to Memorial to assume his current position in 1998.

Dr. Payne has authored or co-authored more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, invited reviews, book chapters and abstracts. He has co-edited two books: Current Therapy of Pain, with Dr. Kathleen M. Foley and Assessment and Treatment of Cancer Pain, with Drs. C. Stratton Hill and Richard B. Pratt.

Dr. Payne has received a Distinguished Service Award from the American Pain Society, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Cincinnati and the Mayo Clinic. He has delivered the Charles D. Airing Lecture at the University of Cincinnati and the Iris Fisher Lecture in Medical Humanities at the Yale School of Medicine.

Dr. Payne has served on numerous panels and advisory committees of local, state and national organizations. He was on the committee of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) in the Public Health Service, which developed formal guidelines for acute pain management and later co-chaired the expert panel, which developed the national clinical practice guidelines for the management of cancer pain. He has served on the Board of Directors of the American Pain Society and the American Academy of Pain Medicine. He has also co-chaired the Analgesic Guidelines Task Force of the American Pain Society. He is a former member of the National Institutes of Health Behavioral Medicine Study Section. Dr. Payne served on the Institute of Medicine committee that evaluated the quality of health care delivered at the end-of-life, and wrote the influential report, Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life (National Academy Press, 1997). He has given expert testimony to the Congressional Black Caucus National Brain Trust, and the President's Cancer Panel in the area of health care access disparities in cancer care, palliative medicine and end-of-life care.

Presently, Dr. Payne serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Pain (the official journal of the American Pain Society), the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management and Medical Crossfire. He is a member of numerous professional organizations including the American Academy of Neurology, the American Neurological Association, the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He currently serves on The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation National Advisory Committee Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care. Dr. Payne serves as an advisor to the American Medical Association's Education for Physicians on End-of-Life Care (EPEC) project. He chairs the International Advisory Committee of the Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr. Payne's current activities encompass treatment, research, training and community outreach in the areas of pain management and palliative care. He and his multi-disciplinary staffs are involved in a variety of clinical trials addressing the efficacy and safety of new analgesic agents and studies of end-of-life interventions. Dr. Payne had developed innovative educational and training programs to address the well-documented knowledge deficits of many health care providers. For this work, he has received grants from the National Institutes of Health, Health Services Resource Administration (HRSA), The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and the Soros Open Society Institute Project on Death in America. Finally, he has been a leader of both national and international projects addressing health care access disparities in medically underserved populations, especially as they relate to cancer and HIV/AIDS patients requiring palliative and end-of-life care.

[Go to Featured Innovation]

Terrie Reid Payne, MA

Ms. Payne began her career in 1976 after earning her Masters degree in Gerontology/Human Development from the University of Chicago. She worked with senior citizens in Roxbury, Massachusetts where she conducted a needs assessment survey and planned congregate housing.

Ms. Payne relocated to New York in 1979 and began working in the area of mental health administration. She worked for the New York State Psychiatric Institute, where she monitored new housing and support services programs for the chronically mentally ill. From there she spent seven years with the Housing Department of the Washington Heights-West Harlem-Inwood Mental Health Council, Inc. and worked her way up to the position of Deputy Director.

In 1987, Ms. Payne moved from her role at Washington Heights and into a position as a Regional Liaison Counselor at the University of Cincinnati in the Alcohol/Drug Abuse Center. In that capacity, she directed the program of services for women transitioning between prison and their home communities from 1990 to 1992.

In 1992 her family moved to Houston. For two years Ms. Payne worked as a volunteer for the Houston Area Urban League as an Educational Consultant. From 1994 to 1998, she was the Director of an After School program for K-8 students and an administrator in the Transfer Department for the Houston Independent School System.

After spending six years in Houston, Ms. Payne returned to New York and to her former agency in mental health, since renamed Heritage Health and Housing, Inc. (HHS). She worked as Director of Special Projects and Directed or facilitated the HHS annual report, 1998 Healing Awards fundraiser, Y2K Preparation Committee, and the Client Characteristics Survey for 1999 (400 clients).

In February 2000, SOROS/Project on Death in America funded the formation of a Planning and Advisory Committee, "Initiative to Improve Palliative and End-of-Life Care in the African American Community." An article about the Initiative was published in JAMA in November 2000. She serves as Deputy Director of the Initiative. In the spring of 2000, Ms. Payne became the Program Director of the Harlem Palliative Care Network, where she now serves as a consultant.

[Go to Featured Innovation]

This archived issue:
Archive Issue Home | Editorial | Featured Innovation | Personal Reflections | International Perspectives | Read More | Resources & Tools | On-line Discussion

Site Design by Interactive Web Design

A project of