History
The Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore, India, was established in 1900 as a single-room clinic by Dr. Ida S. Scudder. Today, CMC is a prestigious medical institution with 3,844 beds and provides compassionate and patient-centered care to over two million patients nationwide. The institute is committed to excellence in care through its professional health teams working to promote, prevent, cure and rehabilitate patients, including palliative care. In addition, the institute seeks to develop high quality services through education and research.
Profile
The Department of Palliative Medicine comprises of an interdisciplinary team with six specialist palliative care physicians, four nurses, two social workers, one psychologist, one chaplain and one coordinator. With a vision to provide exemplary specialist palliative care services to all patients with serious-health related suffering, the team advocates and upholds the patient-first policy of the institution. The Department provides daily outpatient clinics, dedicated inpatient care, home-based palliative care, emergency palliative care and hospice care, with patient care plan being summarised and audited in a weekly team meeting.
Specialities
CMC Vellore offers comprehensive cancer care through different departments, including Radiation Oncology, Medical Oncology, Paediatric Oncology, Haematology, different Surgical Oncology speciality departments and Palliative Medicine, with regular multidisciplinary tumour board meetings and cross-consultations taking place. Other diagnostic and supportive broad and super-speciality services facilitate efficient patient care. In addition, the following departments are available; Interventional Radiology, Hepatology, Medical Gastroenterology, Pathology, Nuclear Medicine, Clinical genetics, Psychiatry, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Pulmonary Medicine, Radiodiagnosis, Critical Care, Transfusion Medicine, Cardiology, General Medicine, Endocrinology, Nursing, and various ancillary services such as a stoma care clinic, voice clinic, speech and swallow therapy clinic. The institute offers various post-graduate and fellowship programmes across these specialities.
Palliative and Supportive Care
Each team member in the Department of Palliative Medicine is dedicated to delivering evidence-based, goal-concordant care to patients of all ages with serious health-related suffering from life-threatening illnesses across outpatient, inpatient, acute-care, home, and hospice settings. In addition, a consultative model of palliative care addresses the palliative care needs of patients admitted under other disciplines, both oncology and non-oncology, across physical, emotional, social, functional, spiritual and existential domains. The unit runs various programmes that extend support to patients' caregivers, including bereavement services and educational and vocational empowerment. Moreover, the department actively conducts tailored research programmes to improve service delivery to the regional patient population and trains undergraduates and postgraduates in medical and allied health sciences in basic and advanced palliative care.
Last update: September 2024
