Honoring Danielle M. Noreika

By Brian Berman

The entire VCU community was shocked and saddened by the unexpected passing of Danielle M. Noreika, M.D., in October. Dr. Noreika was a beloved palliative care physician at VCU, served as the Section Chief of Palliative Medicine and as Program Director of the VCU Health Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship program.

I first connected with Dr. Noreika in July of 2021 and discussed the idea of developing a multidisciplinary neuropalliative care clinic within the PMDC to help bring more supportive care options to our movement disorders patients. She responded to me the very next day to say she was interested and asked to meet to discuss the idea further.

We went on to create a PMDC-based “Supportive Care Clinic” that involved Dr. Noreika and her team, including a palliative care fellow, social worker, nurse navigator along with an advance care planning specialist. In early 2024, Dr. Noreika helped combine the PMDC Supportive Care Clinic with our Progressive Supranuclear Palsy Center of Care clinic and worked with the PMDC’s Matthew Barrett, M.D., to help better serve this patient population with palliative care needs until her passing.

In July 2023, I was invited to serve on Dr. Noreika’s promotion committee. It was an easy decision by the committee to recommend her promotion to full Professor in recognition of all her significant contributions to the field of palliative medicine.

On a personal level, Dr. Noreika exuded the very best attributes of a clinician. She was dedicated to serving patients and intensely focused on improving their quality of life through the prevention and relief of suffering. She was a positive and extremely caring and passionate person and an easy friend. She touched innumerable lives — including many in the PMDC community — and will be sorely missed by everyone who had the good fortune to interact with her before her passing.