Dr. Gregory Pelc began volunteering for Pallium India over a decade ago, even before he began medical school. His interest in the field of palliative care was sparked by Dr. Ann Broderick, who introduced him to the basic principles of palliative care during a hospital volunteer program. He attributes much of his learning about palliative care to Dr. Jo Eland and Dr. Rajagopal, who both impressed upon him the importance of centering medical care around the patient’s goals and values. Dr. Pelc believes that his visits to Pallium India and his early exposure to palliative care have transformed his approach to patient care and medicine.

As part of an undergraduate course by the University of Iowa, he first visited Pallium’s facility in Trivandrum in 2010. During his second visit in 2012 as a medical school student, Dr. Pelc spent five weeks traveling with Pallium’s mobile field teams and meeting with patients and families in their homes. He immediately realized the impact that the Pallium team had on the families of patients, and he felt the experience to be extremely rewarding, for both the staff and the families. He fondly recalls one young homebound woman who sang for the visiting palliative care team.

Dr. Pelc grew up in rural Iowa. He received his undergraduate education in Integrative Physiology at the University of Iowa in 2011, and then stayed to complete his MD in 2015. He went on to finish his residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Hospice and Palliative Medicine at Indiana University in 2019. He currently practices as a palliative medicine inpatient
physician in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he and his wife live. During his spare time, Dr. Pelc likes bicycling, cooking, reading, and traveling. As an avid reader, he enjoys works on a wide variety of authors and subjects, and he is currently attempting to read a work by every Nobel Laureate in Literature. He also enjoys reading about the culture and history of the places he plans to visit during future vacations.

Dr. Pelc remains engaged and connected with Pallium India through networking with other Pallium India volunteers at conferences and collaborating on lectures. He supports Pallium India by researching and sharing journal articles for which access in India may be limited. Committed to continuing his collaboration with Pallium India, Dr. Pelc looks forward to visiting India again in the near future.