RELEASE ON RECEIPT




                                                    Contact: Katherine Jackson
	CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA., Aug. 24--Dr. Carlos E. Gomez will be one of 13 
Soros Faculty Scholars from across the country to share a $3 million grant 
dedicated to improving care for the dying.  Gomez, an assistant professor of 
medicine and director of the hospice at the University of Virginia Medical 
Center, is developing a model program in end-of-life care and the education 
of residents in palliative medicine.
	U.Va.'s hospice unit, which is operated jointly with the Hospice of 
the Piedmont, opened July 24. 
	The grant represents the first installment of more than $7.5 million 
that the Project on Death in America (PDIA) will be awarding over the next 
five years to promote change in health care educational institutions.
	Eleven other medical institutions in the United States and Canada are 
participating in the three-year project.
	"The role of these scholars is to participate in our overall goal of 
transforming the culture of dying through catalyzing change in the health 
care institutions they represent," said Kathleen Foley, M.D., director of PDIA.
	
 	The Open Society Institute (OSI), one of the foundations created and 
funded by international financier and philanthropist George Soro, undertakes 
advocacy projects aimed at encouraging debate and disseminating information 
on a range of issues which are insufficiently explored in the public realm.  
To this end, OSI funds projects that promote the exploration of novel 
approaches to domestic and international problems.
	Gomez, who was born in Havana, received his undergraduate and Ph.d.
degrees, respectively from U.Va. and the University of Chicago.  He received 
his medical degress from U.Va. Gomez has written three books, "Regulating 
Death:Euthanasia and the Case of the Netherlands, "Protocols for the Use of 
Life-Sustaining Technologies: a Design Guide, and, along with retired U.Va.  
dean and vice president Dr. Kenneth R. Crispell co-wrote "Hidden Illness in 
the White House."
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                                                August 23, 1995