CAPC Advisors
Margaret Campbell, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N.
Steven Z. Pantilat, M.D., F.A.C.P.
Martha L. Twaddle, M.D., F.A.C.P., F.A.A.H.P.M.,
Charles F. von Gunten, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.P.
David Weissman, M.D., F.A.C.P.
James A. Block, M.D., is president of J.A. Block Health Associates, a consulting firm working with the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation, the Commonwealth Foundation, and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among others. Dr. Block is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of Johns Hopkins Health System and the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was President and Chief Executive Officer of University Hospitals of Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University and President of Rochester Area Hospital Corporation. Dr. Block also served as Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Clinical Associate Professor of Preventive, Family and Rehabilitative Medicine, and Adjunct Professor of Health Policy Management both at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Gretchen Marcum Brown, MSW, has been the President and CEO of Hospice of the Bluegrass (HOB) since January 1982. Ms. Brown is a current member of the Board of Directors of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO); the Foundation for Hospices in Sub Saharan Africa (FHSSA); and the Kentucky Association of Hospices and Palliative Care (KAHPC). She has chaired numerous committees for both the NHPCO and the KAHPC, serves on the Executive Committee of each, and continues to work in differing capacities for the two organizations over and above her Board duties. Ms. Brown is the Chair Elect of the NHPCO Board. She is the past Chair of the National Hospice Work Group, a “think tank” composed of leaders from around the U.S. considered to be among the most influential authorities on end-of-life care in this country. Presently, she serves on the Bluegrass Mental Health/Mental Retardation Board. In the recent past, the Governor of Kentucky appointed her to the KY Breast Cancer Task Force. Additionally, she is a member of the Board of the UK College of Public Health, External Advisory Council.
Margaret Campbell, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N. is a nationally recognized expert in hospital-based palliative care consultation. The Palliative Care service at Detroit Receiving Hospital pre-dates most other programs and is noted for providing comprehensive palliative care across hospital departments and units using existing hospital resources with only small financial outlay. She was one of the earliest clinicians to measure and disseminate positive financial outcomes from palliative care consultation. Dr. Campbell is also a founder and associate director of the Center to Advance Palliative-Care Excellence (CAPE) at Wayne State University. Dr. Campbell has served on a number of committees, task forces, and collaboratives to improve care of the dying, including the Institute of Medicine Committee that produced the report “Approaching Death”, the Robert Wood Johnson foundation supported Last Acts program, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement breakthrough collaborative “Improving care at the end of life”, and the Advisory Committee to the National Consensus Project. She is currently on the Board of Directors of the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association and the Editorial Board for the Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing.
Carolyn (Lyn) Ceronsky A.P.R.N., M.S. is the director of Transitions and Life Choices, the palliative care program for Fairview Health Services. She also directs the Palliative Care Leadership Center at Fairview. Ms. Ceronsky is a member of the steering committee for the 2007 University Health Care Consortium palliative care benchmarking study, and serves on the administrative role delineation advisory group for the National Board for Certification of Hospice and Palliative Nurses. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Minnesota Palliative Care Partnership and steering committee for the Minnesota State Cancer Plan. She presents locally and nationally on a variety of topics and has published in both oncology and palliative care. She is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing where she was named a Densford Scholar in 2005. In 2004, she received the distinguished alumna award from the College of St Benedict. She received the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Susan Baird Excellence in Writing in Nursing Research award in 1997 and was named an ONS leadership fellow in 2001.
Amber Jones, M.Ed., is a spokesperson and advocate on behalf of patients and their loved ones at the end of life and the providers who care for them. Currently a consultant to the Center to Advance Palliative Care, Ms. Jones' consulting practice focuses on health policy, planning and management. She is the immediate past president and chief executive officer of the Hospice and Palliative Care Association of New York State. She is a member of the National Hospice Work Group, the Core Task Force of the National Access and Values for Care at the End of Life Project, and the Advisory Committee for the Palliative Care Project for Friends and Relatives of Institutionalized Aging. She has recently served on the Executive Committee of the Children's Hospice International Medicare/Medicaid Demonstration Project, the Board of Directors of the Partnership for Caring and as a member of the Advisory Committee for the New York State Initiative on Care at the End of Life. Ms. Jones chaired the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization's Committee on the Medicare Hospice Benefit. She also served on the New York State Attorney General's Commission on Quality Care at the End of Life, the Advisory Committee for the United Hospital Fund Palliative Care Initiative, and the Committee on Hospice and Home Care of the Medical Society of New York.
R. Sean Morrison, M.D. is Director of the National Palliative Care Research Center, Director of the Lilian and Benjamin Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute, Hermann Merkin Professor of Palliative Care, Professor of Geriatrics and Medicine, Vice-Chair of Research, Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Staff Physician, James J. Peters VAMC, Bronx, NY. Dr. Morrison also served as the 2010 President of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Dr. Morrison received his B.Sc. from Brown University and his M.D. from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at the New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center and fellowship training in geriatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He has been on the faculty of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine since 1995 where he established the Acute Care for the Elderly Unit and served as its director from 1995 – 1997. Dr. Morrison has received numerous awards for his research in geriatrics and palliative care and has published over one hundred articles related in these fields. His research focuses on decision making at the end of life, pain and symptom management in high risk and medically underserved populations, and quality measures in palliative care. He is an active clinician who cares for both healthy older adults and for persons living with serious and life threatening illness. Dr. Morrison was featured on the Bill Moyers PBS series “On Our Own Terms” and is a frequent commentator on issues related to palliative care and geriatrics in the national media.
Steven Z. Pantilat, MD, FACP, is Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He is Director of the UCSF Palliative Care Leadership Center. Serving as a hospitalist attending physician on the medical service of UCSF, he is also the founding Director of the Palliative Care Program, which includes an interdisciplinary palliative care consultation service and Comfort Care Suites, a 2-bed inpatient palliative care unit. Dr. Pantilat is also a full-time faculty member in the Program in Medical Ethics at UCSF. He is Post President, a member of the Board of Directors, and the former Chair of the Ethics committee of the Society of Hospitalist Medicine. Board certified in palliative medicine, Dr. Pantilat is a Soros Foundation Project on Death in America Faculty Scholar, and a recipient of a K-23, Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award from the National Institute on Aging. His research focuses on improving end-of-life care in hospitals and on palliative care education, and he has published widely in the areas of hospitalist care, inpatient-outpatient physician communication, and palliative care. Dr. Pantilat is a co-editor of an ongoing series in JAMA focused on improving end-of-life care entitled, “Perspectives on Care at the Close of Life.”
Philip H. Santa-Emma, M.D. is Medical Director of Mount Carmel Palliative Care Service. Dr. Santa-Emma is board certified in Family Medicine and certified in Palliative Medicine. He received his M.D. from The Ohio State University (1988) and completed an internship/residency in family medicine (1988-1991) at Mount Carmel Medical Center, in Columbus, Ohio where he worked in Family Practice until 1997. Dr. Santa-Emma is Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at the Ohio State University. Since 2000 he has been Medical Director of Mount Carmel Palliative Care Services and Mount Carmel Hospice. He chaired Mount Carmel Health Ethics Committee from 2002 to 2006 and was elected a trustee of the American Board of Hospice and Palliative Medicine in 1999. Dr. Santa Emma has lectured nationally on family medicine, medical ethics, and palliative medicine and has published on palliative care and symptom management topics. Dr. Santa-Emma is principal investigator for the Mount Carmel Palliative Care Leadership Centers program. He is Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program Director and oversees Internal Medicine and Family Practice resident training in Palliative Medicine under Mount Carmel Medical Education Department.
Thomas Smith, M.D. is Esteemed Professor of Medicine and Chair of the Division of Haematology/Oncology and Palliative Care at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health Systems. His main research interests are access to care and improvements of care. Dr. Smith graduated from Yale University School of Medicine in 1979. He was a Medical College of Virginia VCU Fellow in Haematology/Oncology between 1982 and 1987, and was appointed Special Visiting Fellow on the National Cancer Center Biological Response Modifiers Programme in 1986. With colleague Bruce Hillner he has published articles in various journals on cost-effectiveness and rational allocation of resources, the quality of cancer care, and ways to improve it. He also has an active practice in medical oncology, concentrating on new treatments for breast cancer and symptom control. He is currently the Chair of the National Quality Forum Task Force on Symptom Control and End of Life Care, and is the Medical Director of the Thomas Palliative Care Unit, which in July 2005 won the American Hospital Association ‘Circle of Life’ award for being the best palliative care programme in the country.
Lynn Hill Spragens, M.B.A., is president/chief executive officer of Spragens & Associates, LLC. She was previously a partner with The Bard Group, LLC of Newton, Massachusetts. With an extensive business background, Ms. Spragens serves as a business and operations consultant to medical groups, hospitals and managed care organizations, providing strategic business support to physician leaders and management teams. This work includes synthesis of financial and clinical objectives through business case development, operations overview, project redesign and professional staff development. Ms. Spragens provides strategic business advice to physician leaders on HMO and insurance practices, healthcare operations and organizational development. Ms. Spragens has a master's degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina and an undergraduate degree with honors from Duke University.
Martha L. Twaddle, M.D., F.A.C.P., F.A.A.H.P.M., is chief medical officer at Midwest Palliative & Hospice CareCenter. A nationally recognized expert in hospice and palliative medicine, Dr. Twaddle is program director of the Midwest Fellowship in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, past president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM), and an associate member of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Lurie Cancer Center. She also is a fellow at the Institute of Medicine of Chicago and associate professor of medicine at Rush Medical College. Dr. Twaddle serves as chair of the Rush North Shore Medical Center Ethics Committee and is on the advisory board of the Medicare Health Support Program. She is a member of the Palliative Care Steering Committee for the University HealthSystem Consortium and also served on the steering committee and advisory board for the National Consensus Project for Palliative Care, which published “Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care” in 2004. Dr. Twaddle was the inaugural recipient of the AAHPM Josefina B. Magno Distinguished Hospice Physician Award in 2005. She received her medical degree from the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, and completed a residency in internal medicine through Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine at Evanston Hospital, where she was also chief resident
Charles F. von Gunten, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.P., is the medical director, Center for Palliative Studies, San Diego Hospice, a teaching affiliate of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. He currently serves as co-principal of the Education for Physicians in End-of-life Care (EPEC) Project. Dr. von Gunten also serves on the National Board of Medical Examiners in the area of end-of-life care questions for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). He has been particularly interested in the integration of hospice and palliative care into academic medicine, and has published and spoken widely on the subjects of hospice, palliative medicine and pain/symptom control. Dr. von Gunten was an assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University Medical School until 1999, where he directed programs in hospice and palliative care, education and research. He currently holds the academic rank of associate clinical professor of medicine, University of California, San Diego. Dr. von Gunten received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
David Weissman, M.D., F.A.C.P., is a Professor Emeritus, and Founder of the Medical College of Wisconsin Palliative Care Center. He is Board Certified in Medical Oncology, Hospice and Palliative Medicine. In 1991 he began one of the first academic palliative care programs in the United States. In 2003, the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Palliative Care Program was designated as one of six United States Palliative Care Leadership Center’s by the Center to Advance Palliative Care. Dr. Weissman is director of EPERC, End-of-Life Palliative Education Resource Center and he was the Founding Editor of the Journal of Palliative Medicine. Currently, he directs the Medical School Palliative Care Education Project and serves as a consultant to the Center to Advance Palliative Care and runs a consulting practice, Palliative Care Education, LLC.
