Judith E. Nelson, MD, JD, received her MD from New York University School of Medicine and her JD from Harvard Law School. She is Professor of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine and Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and ... READ MORE ► is Associate Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit and Respiratory Care Unit at Mount Sinai Medical Center. She is board certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, Critical Care Medicine and Palliative Medicine. For the last decade, Dr. Nelson has led an NIH-funded research program focusing on the integration of palliative care in management of acute and chronic critical illness. She recently received a five-year K07 Academic Career Leadership Award from the National Institute on Aging to establish The IPAL-ICU Project, which is co-sponsored by the Center to Advance Palliative Care. Other awards recognizing Dr. Nelson's leadership in this field include the Faculty Scholar Award from the Project on Death in America, the Roger C. Bone Award for Advances in End-of-Life Care from the American College of Chest Physicians, and the Grenvik Family Award for Ethics from the Society of Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Nelson led the team that developed the "Care and Communication Bundle" of ICU palliative care quality measures for the Voluntary Hospital Association's Transformation of the ICU program. She has authored numerous publications and lectures frequently in the United States and abroad. READ LESS

David E. Weissman, MD, FACP, 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 ... READ MORE ► . In 2003, the Medical College of Wisconsin's Palliative Care Program was designated as one of six United States Palliative Care Leadership Centers by the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC). Dr. Weissman is Director of the End-of-Life Palliative Education Resource Center (EPERC), and he was the founding editor of the Journal of Palliative Medicine. Currently he directs the Medical School Palliative Care Education Project, serves as a consultant to CAPC and runs a consulting practice, Palliative Care Education, LLC. READ LESS

Rick Bassett, MSN, RN, APRN, ACNS-BC, CCRN, Director of Nursing Practice and Research at Boise, Meridian, and Mountain States Tumor Institute, St. Luke's Hospital, Boise, Idaho, is a nursing leader with an impressive track record in integrating palliative and critical care across ... READ MORE ► diverse ICUs in community-based hospitals. Mr. Bassett obtained his Master of Science in Nursing degree from Idaho State University and is certified as a critical care nurse (CCRN) through the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN). He currently serves on the Critical Care Innovation Network of the Voluntary Hospital Association (VHA), Inc., as a content expert and faculty member, and is a consultant to the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 3 ICU-palliative care initiative. Mr. Bassett has two decades of critical care experience, with more than five years as a nursing manager for adult critical care at his institution, where he has also coordinated performance improvement and outcomes management for all cardiac and vascular service lines for ten years. He serves on the institution's Ethics Committee and performs bioethics consultation. Mr. Bassett lectures nationally and has published on topics related to critical care improvement, including palliative care, infection prevention and glycemic control. READ LESS

Renee D. Boss, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is an expert in neonatal palliative care. Dr. Boss received her MD from Boston University School of Medicine and is completing a master's degree in ... READ MORE ► Health Science at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She founded the Palliative Care Working Group in her division and is a member of the Maryland Pediatric Palliative Care Coalition and of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Dr. Boss also serves on the Johns Hopkins Hospital Ethics Consultation Service. Honors include the Young Investigator's Award from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. She received an NIH-K-12 Clinical Scholars' Award, which is funding her research on decision making by parents of critically ill neonates in the NICU. READ LESS

Karen J. Brasel, MD, MPH, is Professor of Trauma Surgery and Critical Care Surgery and Population Health/Bioethics at the Medical College of Wisconsin as well as Medical Director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit and Associate Trauma Medical Director at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran ... READ MORE ► Hospital, where she is also Director of Resident Research in the Department of Surgery. Dr. Brasel received her medical degree from the University of Iowa, completed her surgical residency and master's degree in Public Health at the University of Minnesota, and her surgical critical care fellowship at the University of North Carolina. Her research interests, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, include post-injury quality of life and functional outcomes and surgical palliative care. She is a member of the American College of Surgeons' (ACS) Committee on Trauma as well as the ACS Task Force on Surgical Palliative Care, and is involved in the ACS ICU Palliative Care Task Force. READ LESS

Margaret Campbell, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a nationally recognized expert in palliative care for ICU and other hospitalized patients. Dr. Campbell received her bachelor's and master's degrees in Nursing from Wayne State University and her PhD in Nursing at the University of Michigan. She was ... READ MORE ► one of the first to measure and disseminate positive outcomes from hospital-based 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. She served on the Critical Care Peer Workgroup of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care program, the Institute of Medicine Committee that produced the landmark "Approaching Death" report, the "Improving Care at the End of Life" collaborative by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and the Advisory Committee to the National Consensus Project. She is currently President of the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association. Dr. Campbell was inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in 1999, and is board certified in both Medical-Surgical Advanced Practice and Palliative Care Advanced Practice Nursing. READ LESS

Therese B. Cortez, MSN, NP, ACHPN, is Program Manager of the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 3 Palliative Care Program in New York/New Jersey. Ms. Cortez received her master's degree in Nursing from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is board certified in ... READ MORE ► Palliative Care as an Advanced Practice Nurse. Throughout VISN 3's acute care and nursing home facilities, she has transformed palliative care program development through a uniform, networkwide and interdisciplinary approach to promoting timely and reliable access to care, collaborating with ICUs, focusing on quality improvement, enhancing expertise of staff, and forming enduring partnerships with the community. The VISN 3 Palliative Care Program, which received the American Hospital Association's Circle of Life Citation of Honor Award, has become a model of excellence and innovation for VISN Palliative Care Programs across the VA system. Ms. Cortez has played a leading role in the development and implementation of the Communication Skills Training Laboratory Program for ICU nurses in VISN 3. She received the New York Hospice and Palliative Care Association's Award for her work in establishing the New York State Hospice Veteran Partnership. She serves on the National Board of Certification of Hospice and Palliative Care Nurses Advanced Practice Nurse Exam Committee. Ms. Cortez has published in peer-reviewed journals on development of a network-based palliative care program, cost and health care utilization effects of palliative care, and tools to facilitate family meetings in the ICU. READ LESS

J. Randall Curtis, MD, MPH, is Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington, Section Head for Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, and Director of the Harborview / University of Washington End-of-Life Care Research Program. He is ... READ MORE ► internationally recognized as a pioneer and leader in ICU palliative care. Dr. Curtis completed his fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Washington, where he also received his research training as a Clinical Scholar in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. His research interests focus on measuring and improving the quality of end-of-life care among chronically ill and critically ill patients and their families. He is currently funded by multiple R01 awards from the National Institute of Nursing Research and is the recipient of a K24 Award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for mentoring clinical research trainees. Dr. Curtis has received a number of awards and honors, including the Roger C. Bone Award for Advances in End-of-Life Care from the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) and the Grenvik Family Award for Ethics from the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM). He has authored or coauthored more than one hundred peer-reviewed original research journal articles and more than seventy review articles, editorials and book chapters. He served as President of the American Thoracic Society, 2009-2010. READ LESS

Dana R. Lustbader, MD, FCCM, FCCP, is Chief of Palliative Medicine at North Shore-Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Health System, where she was also Director of Critical Care. She is an acknowledged expert in palliative medicine and critical care medicine, with board certification in both ... READ MORE ► specialties as well as internal medicine, and is Director of the Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program at North Shore-LIJ. Dr. Lustbader received her MD from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and completed a fellowship in Critical Care at St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center in New York. She is a member of the Hospice & Palliative Medicine Subspecialty Test Writing Committee of the American Board of Internal Medicine. READ LESS

Anne C. Mosenthal, MD, FACS, is Professor of Surgery at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School, where she is Chief of the Divisions of Critical Care and Palliative Care in the Department of Surgery and Director of Surgical Intensive Care. A ... READ MORE ► specialist in trauma surgery, surgical intensive care and palliative medicine, she is a nationally recognized expert in palliative care for critically ill patients and their families in surgical and trauma ICUs. Dr. Mosenthal received her MD from Dartmouth Medical School and completed surgical and critical care training at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital. She was Principal Investigator for "Integrating Palliative Care into the Surgical ICU," a demonstration project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care program. She received the Faculty Scholar Award of the Project on Death in America and the Grenvik Family Award for Ethics from the Society of Critical Care Medicine. She is a founding member of the American College of Surgeons' Task Force on Surgical Palliative Care. READ LESS

Colleen Mulkerin, MSW, LCSW, is Director of the Palliative Medicine Consult Service at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. Ms. Mulkerin has worked at Hartford Hospital for more than fifteen years, starting on the Trauma Team and then working in the ICU, and has been involved in ... READ MORE ► local as well as national initiatives relating to palliative care in intensive care settings. The Palliative Medicine Consult Service, which she helped to establish, saw more than a thousand patients in its first year and has continued to grow. Ms. Mulkerin was a project leader and faculty member in the Voluntary Hospital Association's Transformation of the ICU program and collaborated on the development of VHA's "Care and Communication Bundle" of ICU Palliative Care Quality Indicators. She has been an advisor to the ongoing ICU Palliative Care Initiative of the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 3. READ LESS

Kathleen A. Puntillo, RN, DNSc, FAAN, is Professor Emerita of Nursing and a research scientist at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Puntillo has an active and long-standing program of research on pain in critically ill and injured patients and procedural pain, and recently ... READ MORE ► expanded her work to include investigations of symptom assessment and management in ICU patients at high risk of dying. She received an ongoing R01 research award from the National Institute of Nursing Research to study the treatment of thirst in critically ill patients. She also leads the large-scale "Europain" study evaluating procedure-related pain in patients enrolled at centers around the world. She is a consultant to the ICU Palliative Care Initiative of the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 3, focusing on the Communication Skills Training Laboratory program for ICU nursing staff. Dr. Puntillo is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and was a Faculty Scholar with the Project on Death in America and a member of the Critical Care Peer Workgroup of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care program. She has received many awards, including the Distinguished Researcher Award from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), the Grenvik Family Award for Ethics from the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM), and the Established Investigator Award from the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM). Dr. Puntillo is actively involved in many professional organizations, including AACN, SCCM, and ESICM. She practices critical care nursing on a regular basis and publishes and lectures extensively on the topics of pain, palliative care and symptom management. READ LESS

Daniel E. Ray, MD, MS, FCCP, is Medical Director of the Medical Critical Care Program and Fellowship Director of the Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Dr. Ray received his medical degree from the Ohio State ... READ MORE ► College of Medicine and completed his residency in Internal Medicine, fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and master's degree in Science at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He is recognized as a critical care/palliative care leader, with special expertise in ICU palliative care in the community hospital setting. He was Co-Principal Investigator for a major demonstration project, "Implementing Palliative Care in Three Community Hospital Intensive Care Units," funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care program. He received the Roger C. Bone Award for Advances in End-of-Life Care from the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) and is currently the Vice-Chair for ACCP's Palliative and End-of-Life Care Network Steering Committee. READ LESS