Janet Bull MD
Janet Bull, MD FAAHPM, Chief Medical Officer at Four Seasons, is Program Director of the Palliative Care Immersion course. Dr. Bull's activities span the clinical, research, academic, and leadership domains. She is board-certified in hospice and palliative medicine and, in 2007, received the Sharon O. Dixon Award which recognizes excellence in hospice clinical care. In addition to her clinical practice and administrative role at Four Seasons, she holds faculty appointments as Consultant Assistant Professor in the Internal Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina and as Clinical Instructor in Medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Henderson Family Practice Residency Program. A Fellow of the Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM), Dr. Bull chairs the AAHPM Research Committee. She also sits on the Hospice Intermediary Advisory Committee and is chairs the Chief Medical Officers group of the National Hospice Work Group. She serves on the Steering Committee of the Palliative Care Research Cooperative (PCRC), an NIH-funded national cooperative group established to advance the science underlying palliative care through strategic, high-quality, multi-site, collaborative research. Dr. Bull has coauthored several papers on palliative care and quality data reporting, and since 2008 has served as an Associate Editor of PC-FACS (Palliative Care - Fast Access to Critical Summaries), the AAHPM's online digest of the current, most salient, high-quality, peer-reviewed journal articles. At Four Seasons, Dr. Bull directs an active research department which maintains an average of seven open and enrolling clinical trials at most times; she is Principle Investigator on numerous clinical trials in hospice and palliative medicine. Dr. Bull is a frequent speaker at both state and national meetings.
John Morris MD
John Morris MD FAAHPM is the Medical Director of Palliative Care at Four Seasons and Co-Director with Dr Bull of the Palliative Care Immersion course. Dr Morris started the Four Seasons Palliative Care hospital program in 2003. He graduated from Vanderbilt University and the University of Alabama School of Medicine. He completed his Internal Medicine Residency and Pulmonary Medicine Fellowship at Wake Forest University. Dr Morris practiced pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine before devoting himself to Palliative Medicine. Dr Morris is board certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Medicine, Sleep Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He is a Fellow of the College of Chest Physicians and a Fellow of the American Association of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He is a Clinical Instructor in Medicine at UNC-CH for the Hendersonville Family Practice Residency. Dr Morris speaks locally, regionally and nationally on palliative medicine topics. He is the Sharon O. Dixon Award winner in 2011 for clinical excellence. He has seen the palliative care program grow to serve 4 hospitals and many nursing homes, ALF's, homes and clinics in 5 counties in NC. The Four Seasons Palliative care program won the prestigious Circle of Life award for innovation in 2009.
Sandra Whitlock MD
Sandra Whitlock, MD joined the Four Seasons Palliative Care team in January 2011. She primarily serves as a palliative care consultant at Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC. Dr. Whitlock is originally from Ithaca, New York and obtained her BA in Biology from Cornell University. She then received her medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. From there, Dr. Whitlock did her residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago. She moved to Boston, MA to complete the Harvard Palliative Medicine Fellowship. After fellowship, she practiced as a palliative medicine attending at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and served as an Instructor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. While at MGH, Dr. Whitlock was active in teaching medical students, residents, and fellows. During her time in Boston, she also completed the Harvard Medical Ethics Fellowship. She is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine.
Rikki Hooper FNP-BC
Rikki Nugent Hooper, FNP-BC is the team leader with the Palliative Care Team. Rikki is certified in Advanced Hospice and Palliative Nursing and provides care for patients in all settings, both pediatric and adult. She has presented at both regional and national meetings on a variety of topics. She also serves on the AAHPM Task Force for Quality.
As an RN, she worked in oncology and in critical care prior to becoming a FNP. As an FNP, she worked in critical care, sleep and pulmonary medicine before coming to Four Seasons.
