Dillon Stein, DO is the Director of the Division of Palliative Care at Butler Health System in Butler, Pennsylvania. He received his undergraduate biology degree from Alfred University, followed by his medical degree from West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine. Subsequently, he moved back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to complete an Internal Medicine residency and Chief Residency at West Penn Allegheny Health System. After finishing his Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellowship at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in 2016, he began practicing palliative care in Butler where he helped establish an inpatient consult service and began the only outpatient palliative care clinic set in rural Butler County. Beyond clinical care, Dillon developed an interdisciplinary team involving community partners to cultivate resources for the surrounding underserved population.
In addition to leading the Division of Palliative Care, he has been the Chair of the Department of Medicine for Butler Memorial Hospital and is a contributor on the health system’s Innovation Team. Currently, he is the Chair for the Provider Experience Taskforce, which feeds his passion of improving patient care through the workplace experience of physicians and advanced practice providers at Butler Health System.
He provides leadership and mentorship through the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine’s Rural Special Interest Group. Dillon is a past Hearst AAHPM Leadership Scholarship Awardee and was selected to represent rural and early career perspectives in the 2020 AAHPM COVID-19 Impact and Alignment Taskforce. Additionally, his beliefs in the benefits of gifting and gratitude led to a project involving the delivery of care packages to cultivate support and community with other hospice and palliative care programs. Thus far, he and his team have sent over 45 “palliative care packages” across the country.
Dillon is a passionate physician that strives to bring quality and compassionate palliative and end of life care to his community and the rural settings. He illustrates in the importance of extending the role of palliative care beyond medicine to overcome obstacles that interfere with a patient’s quality of life such as: locating and personally delivering a motorized wheelchair to ensure an individual had it within days instead of weeks, ordering Uber for a patient’s mother to be at his side when he passed, and working with his team to find a home for a patient’s cats so she could rest in peace. Dillon believes that patient care is driven by individualized medical care, connection, and relationships and hopes to inspire others to approach end-of-life care the same way in their communities.