Duke University's Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center will soon offer new mental and emotional support for its patients, their families and their caregivers — all thanks to the donation of a former patient's daughter.
Durham native Rebecca Feinglos donated $250,000 to create the Susan & Mark Feinglos Grief initiative in honor of her parents.
Other WRAL Top Stories
The program was announced on Saturday, which is National Grief Awareness Day.
The money will support the creation of a grief pilot program to support people connected to care at the tumor center.
Feinglos has lots of memories of Duke University and its medical center.
"My parents came to Durham in 1972. My dad started his residency at Duke and they never left," Feinglos said. "My mom eventually became the director of the Duke Medical Center Library. My dad rose in the ranks of the endocrine division here. He eventually became the Chief of the division."
Not all her memories are good ones. Her mom was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, the most deadly form of brain cancer when Feinglos was five-years-old.
"I don’t have a lot of great (memories). I have a lot of scary ones. I remember being scared of things. It is scary when your person is going through any cancer," Feinglos said.
Her mother, Susan Feingloss, died eight years later, Leaving Rebecca's father, Mark, to raise her and her brother as a single parent.
"My dad was my best friend," Feinglos said. "Most of my favorite memories with my dad are basketball games and Duke football games."
Feinglos was working in education when her dad died of a sudden illness in March of 2020.
"My mom's death is something I survived through and overcame. That was a really hard thing in my life and I got through it and I was over it and then when my dad died, it made me learn that you’re never over your grief," she said.
Feinglos changed careers after her dad's death and started a grief support organization called Grieve Leave.
"I am unlucky enough that my grief has been front-loaded and I now I think have a weird privilege that I get to use the knowledge that I have and help other people," Feinglos said.
"It’s an extraordinary problem and no one until [Rebecca] has addressed this."
As a continuation of her work to support those grieving, she has now launched a philanthropy called the Feinglos Fund. It is through this fund and Grieve Leave that she was able to donate the money to start the new grief program at Duke's Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center.
"What we don’t have is anything that addresses the grief that (patients), their family members and the medical team all feel from this," Dr. Henry S. Friedman said.
Doctors Henry Friedman and Allen Friedman are Co-Deputy Directors of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center. They also knew Feinglos' parents and treated her mother.
"What do you say to a 5 year-old when her mom has a brain too and how do you get the kid through that and that’s always been sort of in the DNA of the brain quality of life work," Dr. Allen Friedman said.
Dr. Henry Friedman said Duke's brain tumor center gets 3000 applications for care every year. Of those, the center treats about a thousand patients annually.
"We send out a list every month of the number of patients that we’ve lost and it's a very lengthy list," Dr. Henry Friedman said.
"But we don’t have though is any way to really help the patient while they're being treated or in palliative care mode, for families either before or after and medical care team that takes care of them, deal with the grief which we will feel. It’s an extraordinary problem and no one until Becky has addressed this."
Over the next five years, the money donated will go towards researching best practices for how to provide grief support and putting the findings into practice at the brain tumor center.
Feinglos hopes the program will serve as a model for other healthcare systems in the future.