Nominations Process

2025 Nursing Nominations are Now Closed

The 2026 Physician Award nominations will open on October 1, 2025.  Please consider creating a nomination this Fall for an outstanding physician in palliative care.

The Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician  Awards are presented to a total of six physicians every other year. Since the inception of this program, five honorees have been named in each award cycle: a $25,000 award to a senior physician (20+ years in practice), a $25,000 award to a mid-career physician (8 – 19 years in practice) and three $15,000 awards to early career physicians (0 – 7 years).

In 2022, we were delighted to announce a sixth physician award of $25,000, named posthumously in honor of Dr. Richard Payne and his inspiring lifelong commitment to the relief of pain and suffering and excellence in end-of-life care.  It is intended to honor physicians who work with vulnerable populations, including the economically disadvantaged, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people, people experiencing homelessness, rural populations, refugees, immigrants and closed populations such as prisons.  The Award is named the Richard Payne Palliative Care Leadership Award.

Previous awardees are described here:  2022 Winners

All six of these awards are meant to honor physicians who have demonstrated an exemplary commitment to patients near the end of life through their clinical care, their research, and/or their service to their community.

Nominees must be licensed physicians practicing in the United States. The number of years used to designate senior, mid-career and early career physicians are intended to signal total years in practice, not just years in end-of-life care.  Any individual or group — including professional associates, patients, and their families – may submit nominations.  No More than three nominations per candidate will be accepted (including letters of reference) Nominations submitted in prior years may be resubmitted with an updated CV and/or information.

All nominations will require the following:

• • 1 )A cover sheet with basic information identifying the nominator and nominee;
  • 2) A current CV or similar biographical sketch of the nominee;
  • 3) Brief (500 word limit on each section) summaries of the nominee’s excellence in the areas of:
    a) Technical Competence
    b) Personal Integrity
    d) Active Engagement of Family and Friends
    c) Clinician-Patient Dialogue
    e) Team Work
    f) Summary
• We strongly encourage you to use specific examples and personal anecdotes to make your nomination stand out. 
•  Nominations for the Richard Payne Palliative Care Leadership Award will include the above criteria as well as:
  • • A description of the population being served 
    • Leadership skills and impact demonstrated  

See more info on our physician award criteria.

Nominations for the 2026 Physician Award cycle will begin October 1 2025 and run through January 31 2026.

Please take your time to go through all the steps of the nomination process in order to validate your nomination.

Please Note: If you are using a computer associated with a hospital system, we have encountered problems with our online form due to security/firewall issues. In which case, you can just download our nominations form here and send it along with the CV to our email address here.

We are continuing to try and make the nominations process as easy as possible for everyone. Thank you for your patience and understanding!