Pioneer in Pediatric Pain Management: Prof. Dr. Boris Zernikow Receives the Federal Cross of Merit

When Prof. Dr Boris Zernikow was appointed to Witten/Herdecke University (UW/H) in 2008, he established a special chair: the Chair of Paediatric Pain Therapy and Paediatric Palliative Medicine is the first of its kind in Europe. 

Eighteen years later, Zernikow was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon in recognition of his services to healthcare, scientific research and his decades of social commitment. Andreas Bothe, District President of the Münster District Government, presented him with the award on 9 October at the Datteln Paediatric Palliative Care Centre.

Since his appointment at the UW/H, Zernikow has been researching how pain in children, adolescents and young adults can be treated more effectively and how young people with life-limiting conditions can be cared for in the best possible way.

In doing so, the paediatrician combines research and teaching with direct patient care. He has initiated medical guidelines on paediatric pain management, contributes to the development of nationwide guidelines and has published standard works on paediatric pain management and paediatric palliative care. At the UW/H, he teaches and supervises PhD students – on a voluntary basis.

Advancing care for seriously ill children

Zernikow helped establish structures that continue to shape the care of seriously ill children and young people to this day. As early as the late 1990s, he volunteered alongside two paediatric nurses to visit critically ill patients at home. These early initiatives later developed into specialised outpatient palliative care for children and young people.

In 2002, Zernikow helped establish the German Children’s Pain Centre, where today more than 1,500 children and young people are treated as outpatients and more than 300 as inpatients each year. In 2010, together with other pioneers, he opened the Children’s Palliative Care Centre in Datteln, which houses Europe’s first paediatric palliative care ward.

Commitment beyond medicine and science

Outside the hospital and university, Zernikow has been committed to helping seriously ill children and their families for decades. He founded the charity ‘eigenes Leben – Hilfen für Kinder mit Schmerzen oder lebensverkürzenden Erkrankungen’ (A Life of Their Own – Support for Children with Pain or Life-Shortening Illnesses) and set up the Freundeskreis Kinderpalliativzentrum Datteln e. V. (Friends of the Datteln Paediatric Palliative Care Centre), of which he remains the first chairman on a voluntary basis to this day.

Furthermore, he is committed to making knowledge about chronic pain in children and young people accessible to the wider public.