Karen Bullock (Caitlin Cunningham)

Karen Bullock honored for work in hospice, palliative care

The Louise McMahon Ahearn Endowed Professor in the BC School of Social Work is an acclaimed researcher in health-related equity and inclusion

Karen Bullock, the Louise McMahon Ahearn Endowed Professor in the Boston College School of Social Work and an acclaimed researcher in health-related equity and inclusion issues, has won a major professional honor named for her one-time mentor.

Bullock was selected for the Richard Payne Outstanding Achievement in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. AAHPM, the professional organization for physicians specializing in hospice and palliative medicine, nurses, and other health care providers, presents the award in recognition of “strong, lasting, personal, and professional commitment to improving care for diverse, vulnerable, and underrepresented patient populations.”  

A member of the BCSSW faculty since 2022, Bullock combines considerable mental health experience and expertise in health disparities, health equity, serious illness care, aging and gerontology, hospice, palliative, and end-of-life care decision making.

Bullock, who is also an affiliate faculty member in the University’s Global Public Health and the Common Good program, regards the AAHPM honor as doubly gratifying. Given that the AAHPM membership is largely made up of physicians—she was nominated for the award by an oncologist—her selection was an indication of how highly her work is viewed across fields and disciplines, she explained. And the award’s namesake—a foremost expert on pain management and palliative care who helped establish clinical guidelines for pain management in cancer patients—was a former colleague and collaborator of hers as well as a trailblazer for diversity, equality, and the inclusion of historically underrepresented health professionals in the interdisciplinary field of serious illness care.

“Richard Payne taught me the importance of being steadfast,” said Bullock of Payne, who died in 2019. “He was interdisciplinary in his approach, and getting to know and work with him was critical to my interest in bringing a social work perspective to studying health disparities. His is a legacy that I and many others seek to carry on.”

“There has long been some uncertainty and hesitation within the social work profession about its role in serious illness care, but it’s incumbent upon us to step forward. The pandemic highlighted the great need for holistic care—including psychosocial and spiritual—which is a strength in social work.”
Karen Bullock, BC School of Social Work

Bullock’s research interests are two-fold. She champions a meaningful role for social work in the area of hospice and palliative care—now known as serious illness care—because of the specialized skill set and expertise it intersects with those of physicians, nurses, and allied health clinicians on primary care teams.

“There has long been some uncertainty and hesitation within the social work profession about its role in serious illness care, but it’s incumbent upon us to step forward,” she said. “The pandemic highlighted the great need for holistic care—including psychosocial and spiritual—which is a strength in social work.”

Concurrently, Bullock has had a longstanding concern about disparities and inequities in health care. She has been a principal investigator and/or co-investigator for more than $5 million in federal grant funding focused on equity and inclusion for workforce development, aging, and health network sustainability.

Disparities and inequities can be a fraught topic of discussion in the media and public forums, but to assert these gaps exist is not a wholesale accusation of deliberate, willful racism, said Bullock: They can often occur due to a lack of awareness of, or consideration for, cultural and historical factors.

“A certain philosophy of care may be inconsistent with the cultural norms of a particular group, so they’re reluctant to adopt it,” she explained. “For example, because many Black families are likely to seek—or forego—a particular intervention or resource, there may be an assumption that this is true for all Black families. But the beliefs and lived experiences can be significantly different between African American and other Black people, which therefore influence their attitudes toward health care. Not all Black people are culturally African American.

“Remember, it wasn’t until 1965 that racial segregation in hospitals was outlawed, and it took several more years for some hospitals to comply, so there are generations of African Americans who experienced and remember ‘separate but equal’ health care. It takes a lot of work to undo the harm that’s been done—it doesn’t simply disappear because a law has been put in place.”

But the pandemic-driven impetus for more holistic care offers social work an opportunity to make a meaningful impact in serious illness care and other areas, she added. “It’s not just about the patient who is being cared for, it’s about the whole family; holistic care is a key focus of social work.”

Former professor and head of the North Carolina State University School of Social Work, Bullock is a John A. Hartford Faculty Scholar and has an appointment in the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She served on several national boards and committees, including the Social Work Hospice & Palliative Care Network as vice chair and the American Cancer Society Oncology Social Work Research Peer Review Committee. Other affiliations currently include the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Roundtable on Quality Care for People with Serious Illness; the Palliative Care Quality Collaborative; and the Steering Committee member for the Duke University REACH Equity Center.  

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