Palliative Care Group Established in NWA

Four doctors have joined together to form a specialist physician’s group hoping to fill an important need in Northwest Arkansas.

Palliative Care Associates has a goal, according to Dr. Dennis Pacl, of improving the experience people have when dealing with a serious illness or chronic disabling disease.

Pacl, Drs. Steve Thomason, Fidel Davila and Kim Chapman – all physicians at the Circle of Life Hospice in Springdale – are leading the care group.

Mercy Medical Center in Rogers and Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville are the only hospitals in Northwest Arkansas to offer palliative care programs. Other facilities are in various stages of development.

“Our group is helping to actually develop a kind of group practice that would be able to cover all the hospitals,” Pacl said.

Palliative care, first recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties as a subspecialty in 2008, is appropriate from the time of diagnosis and is not dependent on prognosis. The goal is to relieve suffering and provide the best possible quality of life for patients and their families.

Illnesses most commonly treated by palliative care are heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, renal disease, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

“You have to have a certain passion for it,” Pacl said. “It is gratifying because you can make a big difference beyond the disease.”

The number of palliative care programs nationwide has doubled during the last six years, according to the Center to Advance Palliative Care. Arkansas ranked 40th among U.S. states in a report prepared by the CPAC, and only 12 of the state’s 75 counties have a facility offering a palliative care program.