Director, Center to Advance Palliative Care
Director, Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Professor, Geriatrics and Internal Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Biography

Dr. Diane Meier is Director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care, a national organization devoted to increasing the number and quality of palliative care programs in the United States. She is also Director of the Lilian and Benjamin Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute; Professor of Geriatrics and Internal Medicine; and Catherine Gaisman Professor of Medical Ethics, at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.

Dr. Meier is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Institute on Aging Academic Career Leadership Award, the Open Society Institute Faculty Scholar's Award of the Project on Death in America, and the Alexander Richman Commemorative Award for Humanism in Medicine. She is the recipient of a five-year NIA Academic Career Leadership Award focusing on palliative care of the elderly and the mentoring and support of junior faculty in palliative medicine. She is also Principal Investigator of an NCI-funded five-year multisite study on the outcomes of hospital palliative care services in cancer patients.

Dr. Meier has published extensively in all major peer-reviewed medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. She is editor of the first textbook on Geriatric Palliative Care, as well as four editions of Geriatric Medicine, and has contributed to over 20 books on the subject of geriatrics and palliative care. As one of the leading figures in the field of palliative medicine, Dr. Meier has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Newsday, and The New Yorker, among many others. She also figured prominently in the Bill Moyers series, On Our Own Terms: Dying in America, a four-part documentary aired on PBS.

Diane E. Meier received her BA from Oberlin College, and her M.D. from Northwestern University Medical School. She completed her residency and fellowship training at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. She has been on the faculty of the Departments of Geriatrics and Medicine at Mount Sinai since 1983.

Dr. Meier lives in New York City with her husband, Dr. Warren Sherman, and their two children.

Selected Publications:

• Meier, DE; Morrison, RS. Palliative Care. New England Journal of Medicine. 2004 (June)
• Meier DE; Thar W; Jordan A; Goldhirsch SL; Siu A; Morrison RS. Integrating case management and palliative care. J Pall Med. 2004; Feb. 7(1):119-134
• Meier DE. When pain and and suffering do not require a prognosis: Working toward meaningful hospital-hospice partnership. J Pall Med. 2003; 6:109-115
• Meier DE, Morrison RS. Autonomy reconsidered. N Engl J Med 2002 Apr 4;346(14):1087-1089
• Meier DE. United States: Overview of cancer pain and palliative care. J Pain Symptom Manage 2002 Aug;24(2):265-269.
• Meier DE. Palliative care programs: what, why, and how?. Physician Exec 2001 Dec;27(6):43-47
• Meier D, Ahronheim JC, Morris J, Baskin-Lyons S, Morrison R. High short-term mortality in hospitalized patients with advanced dementia: lack of benefit of tube feeding. Arch Intern Med 2001 Feb 26;161(4):594-9
• Meier DE, Back AL, Morrison RS. The inner life of physicians and care of the seriously ill. JAMA 2001 Dec 19;286(23):3007-3014
• Nierman DM, Schechter CB, Cannon LM, Meier DE. Outcome prediction model for very elderly critically ill patients. Crit Care Med 2001 Oct;29(10):1853-1859
• Carney MT, Meier DE. Palliative care and end-of-life issues. Anesthesiol Clin North America 2000 Mar;18(1):183-209
• Morrison R, Siu A, Leipzig R, Cassel C, Meier D. The hard task of improving the quality of care at the end of life. Arch Intern Med 2000 Mar 27;160(6):743-7
• Manfredi PL, Morrison R, Morris J, Goldhirsch S, Carter J, Meier D. Palliative care consultations: how do they impact the care of hospitalized patients?. J Pain Symptom Manage 2000 Sep;20(3):166-73