Countless people know him as Dr. W. Gifford-Jones; his real name is Ken Walker and his popular medical advice column is published in nearly 250 newspapers across Canada and the United States. Now, in response to his call for more research on pain control and palliative care, thousands of individual donations totalling $465,000 to the W. Gifford-Jones Foundation have helped establish a professorship in pain control and palliative care at the University of Toronto.
“Over the years, I’ve received many letters from families whose loved ones died from cancer,” says Walker, a Toronto gynecologist. “Much remains to be done to control pain in the final stages of cancer and to ease the discomfort associated with other diseases. It’s gratifying to be able to support this important and often overlooked area of medical research.” The professorship will explore, develop and teach methods of pain control to physicians and other health-care professionals.
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