Board Certified in Medical Oncology, Hospice, and Palliative Care Medicine, David E. Weissman is a Professor Emeritus, as well as a founder of the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) Palliative Care Center. In 1991, he began one of the first academic palliative care programs in the United States. In 2003, MCW's Palliative Care Program was designated as one of six United States Palliative Care Leadership Centers by the Center to Advance Palliative Care. Dr. Weissman is also the director of the End-of-Life Palliative Education Resource Center (EPERC) and founding editor of the Journal of Palliative Medicine. In addition to conducting Palliative Care Education, LLC, a consulting practice, he currently directs the Medical School Palliative Care Education Project and serves as a consultant to the Center to Advance Palliative Care.

With an extensive business background, Lynn Hill Spragens, MBA, 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 the synthesis of financial and clinical objectives through business case development, operations overview, project redesign and professional staff development. Ms. Spragens also provides strategic business advice to physician leaders on HMO and insurance practices, healthcare operations and organizational development.

Ms. Spragens is the president and chief executive officer of Spragens & Associates, LLC, consultant for the Center to Advance Palliative Care and a former partner with The Bard Group, LLC, of Newton, Massachusetts. She has a master's degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina and an undergraduate degree with honors from Duke University.

For more than eight years, Julie Pipke, CPC, has overseen the coding, billing, and reimbursement for nearly 300 physicians and 50 mid-level providers within the Department of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She has been with MCW for over 20 years and specializes in Gastroenterology, Internal Medicine, Rheumatology, Cardiovascular, Hematology/Oncology, Pulmonary, Endocrine, Infectious Diseases, Nephrology, Geriatrics and Hospitalists.

Ordained by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Reverend George Handzo, Div., BCC, is the Vice President of Pastoral Care Leadership and Practice at the Healthcare Chaplaincy in New York City, as well as the organization’s consulting service leader. He has a BA from Princeton University, a Master of Divinity degree from Yale University’s Divinity School, and a Master of Arts in Educational Psychology from Jersey City State College. He completed his clinical pastoral education at Yale-New Haven Hospital and Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn.

Acting as a consultant to the Center to Advance Palliative Care, 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. Her consulting practice focuses on health policy, planning and management. Not only is Ms. Jones the immediate past president and chief executive officer of the Hospice and Palliative Care Association of New York State, but she is also 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.

Amber Jones 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. She also chaired the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization's Committee on the Medicare Hospice Benefit, as well as 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.

A board-certified pediatrician with additional board certification in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Kaci Osenga, MD, is the Associate Medical Director of the Pain and Palliative Care Program at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota and Minneapolis/St. Paul. She specializes in many aspects of pediatric palliative care including pain and symptom management. She completed medical school and a general pediatric residency, as well as a clinical fellowship in pediatric hematology and oncology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After completing her fellowship, Dr. Osenga spent two years completing the Clinical Oncologist Research Training Program at UW-Madison, where she focused on palliative care. She also dedicated her time in the program to developing an inpatient pediatric palliative care consultation service.

Dr. Osenga currently cares for children with a variety of acute and chronic conditions, including those with palliative and hospice care needs. She offers home visits to patients who are cared for by Karuna, Palliative Care and Hospice Programs.

Employed by Akron Children's Hospital, Sarah Friebert, MD, is responsible for creating and directing the Haslinger Family Pediatric Palliative Care Division, as well as practicing pediatric hematology/oncology. The Haslinger Center serves over 700 patients and families with life-threatening illness by providing transdisciplinary team care from diagnosis through bereavement, and was selected in 2008 as a Palliative Care Leadership Center for the Center to Advance Palliative Care.

Dr. Friebert received her medical training at Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine. She completed her residency in pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and her fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Friebert is board certified in pediatrics, pediatric hematology/oncology, and hospice and palliative medicine. Dr. Friebert also serves Consulting Pediatric Medical Director for Hospice of the Western Reserve. She is the founder and Chair of the Ohio Pediatric Palliative and End-of-life Network (OPPEN), a statewide coalition representing pediatric hospice and palliative care providers. Dr. Friebert is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at NEOUCOM (Northeast Ohio Universities College of Medicine), an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University, a Fellow in the American Academy of Pediatrics, a Fellow in the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, and a consulting physician to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

A clinical social worker with the Pain and Palliative Care Program at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of MN, Stacy Remke, MSW, LICSW, has over 20 years experience in pediatric care, with special emphasis in caring for children and their families who are coping with life-threatening conditions, end of life care, and medical fragility. Currently, she provides clinical leadership to the psychosocial team in the pain and palliative care program. She also coordinates Children's Institute for Pain and Palliative Care (CIPPC), which provides education, training, consultation and resource development for pediatric palliative care.

Stacy has conducted research into the experiences of families when their child dies, and the coping strategies of hospice workers, including pediatric practitioners. She has been a member of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization's National Leadership Council for Pediatric Issues since 2006, and participated in writing the Standards for Pediatric Palliative Care published in 2009. Stacy is a founding member of the National Network for Pediatric Palliative Care, and is a faculty member for CAPC's PCLC-Pediatrics course. She belongs to the Social Work in Hospice and Palliative Care Network (SWHPN) and advocates for social work practice standards for pediatric palliative care.

Founder and original medical director of the Balm of Gilead, the first inpatient Palliative Care Unit in Alabama that was featured in the PBS documentary On Our Own Terms in 2000, Dr. F. Amos Baily was recruited by the Birmingham VAMC in 2001 at the Director of Palliative Care. The VA Palliative Care Team has developed comprehensive palliative care programs, including opening the Safe Harbor Palliative Care Unit in November of 2005. Dr. Bailey was on the national advisory group for VA Palliative Care Initiatives from 2001-2004 and is currently working to integrate Palliative Care in several VAMC's in the southeast. He is the co-director of the EPEC for Veterans Project that was launched in September 2010. Dr. Bailey is board certified in Internal Medicine, Medical Oncology, and Hospice and Palliative Care.

Since 1999, J. Brian Cassel, PhD, has worked in the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health System and the NCI-designated Massey Cancer Center as the senior clinical and financial analyst using the Massey Cancer Center Information System (MCCIS). His role includes strategic planning, program evaluation, quality assurance, and financial analyses of all oncology-related programs at VCU. Dr Cassel's studies of the outcomes of palliative care are influential in the growing palliative care movement in the US. These have been published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, the Journal of Healthcare Management, and the Wall Street Journal. He is a member of the Palliative Care Leadership Center at VCU, training teams from hospitals across the country in establishing and sustaining palliative care programs. He is frequently invited to speak to national conferences on oncology finances and palliative care, such as the kick-off meeting for palliative care programs throughout the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation. Dr Cassel holds academic appointments as assistant professor in the Quality Health Care (School of Medicine) and adjunct assistant professor in VCU Life Sciences.

Director of the palliative care program of Fairview Health Services for the past 10 years, Lyn Ceronsky, DNP, GNP-BC, CHPCA, also directs the Fairview Palliative Care Leadership Center. She has over 35 years of experience in hospital and home settings as a clinician, educator and administrator. She completed her doctorate in nursing in 2009 with a focus on rural palliative care.

Senior Research Analyst in the Palliative Care Program at the University of California, Kathleen Kerr works on a variety of palliative care research and educational initiatives. She is faculty and finance professional for the UCSF PCLC and has assisted dozens of groups with developing business plans, building clinical outcome databases, and conducting the financial analyses needed to support their hospital-based palliative care programs. Ms. Kerr also assists the UCSF Palliative Care Service with collection, management and analysis of financial and clinical outcome data. She speaks to regional and national audiences on best practices for collecting, managing and analyzing cost, operational and clinical outcome data for hospital-based palliative care programs

Clinical Manager for Palliative Care Services at Mount Carmel Health System in Columbus, Ohio, Sharol Herr has over 20 years of experience in the field of Palliative Care and Hospice and has been the program coordinator for the PCLC at Mount Carmel. Sharol functions as a mentor and educator with Mount Carmel's Palliative Medicine Consult Team and has presented locally and nationally on topics related to Palliative Care and Hospice. She has additional nursing experience in ICU and nursing administration.

One of a growing number of medical oncologists who practice palliative care alongside usual cancer treatment, Thomas J. Smith was one of the first Project on Death in America Faculty Scholars. He has served on the National Cancer Advisory Board, and has led many projects at the American Society of Clinical Oncology. His current research interests are in cancer communication and new ways to relieve pain. He is the Medical Director of the Thomas Palliative Care Unit of VCU-Massey and professor of medicine and palliative care research.

Director of the Symptom Management Service at the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCSF and Associate Director of the UCSF Palliative Care Leadership Center, Michale W. Rabow's research interests include outpatient palliative care and end-of-life care education. He is also a Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, UCSF.

Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gerontology, Geriatrics and Palliative Care, Department of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), Christine Ritchie is a board certified geriatrician and palliative care physician with long-standing experience in clinical care delivery and advanced illness research. Since 2004, she has directed the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Center for Palliative and Supportive Care and the Palliative and Supportive Care Section of the Division of Gerontology, and the Advanced Illness and Multimorbidity Research Program. She is Director of the UAB Geriatric Education Center and the UAB Donald W Reynolds Foundation Comprehensive Program in Geriatric Education; both of these programs focus on educating providers on care at the intersection of geriatrics and palliative medicine. She co-directs the Health IT section of the UAB Center for Outcomes Effectiveness Research and Education. She serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences and is on the Board of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

Affiliated with UAB since 1982 as a student, Rodney O. Tucker is a former alumni President and currently an Associate Professor in the Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology and Palliative Care. Dr. Tucker began his medical career in private practice for over 9 years during which time he assisted in the creation of a new hospice program with Alacare Home Health. Dr. Tucker joined the Center for Palliative Care at UAB in January of 2002 and is board certified in Internal Medicine as well as Hospice and Palliative Medicine. A former fellowship program director his interests include palliative care in chronic non-oncology populations such as heart failure and HIV. Dr. Tucker is also interested in the delivery of healthcare and the systems involved in providing comprehensive palliative care across settings. In 2009 he completed his Masters in Medical Management from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and is currently leading the Innovation Team to Improve the Patient Experience in the UAB Health System.