2010 Mayo Spiritual Care Research Conference

Featured faculty

William S. Breitbart, MD, a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric
Association, is chief of psychiatry service, and vice-chair and attending psychiatrist
in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center in New York, New York. He is also attending psychiatrist in the pain
and palliative care service, Department of Medicine, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center, and professor of clinical psychiatry at Weill Medical College of Cornell
University. Breitbart is a founding member of the board of directors of the American
Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS) and the International Psycho-Oncology Society
(IPOS). He was president of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine in 2007 and is
currently president of IPOS. His research efforts have focused on psychiatric aspects of palliative care and included studies of interventions for anxiety, depression, desire for death, and delirium in cancer and AIDS patients. Most recently, Breitbart has developed a novel psychotherapy intervention aimed at sustaining meaning and improving spiritual well-being in the terminally ill (meaning-centered psychotherapy) and has conducted several randomized controlled trials to demonstrate its efficacy in advanced cancer patients. Meaning–centered psychotherapy has been developed and tested in both group and individual formats. Among his many awards is the 2009 Arthur Sutherland Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Psycho-Oncology Society. Breitbart has published extensively on the psychiatric complications of cancer and AIDS with approximately 100 peer review publications, and 200 chapters and review papers.

Katherine M. Piderman, PhD, BCC, is a staff chaplain and serves as coordinator of
research for Mayo Clinic Department of Chaplain Services. She is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and is on the faculty of the Parish Nursing Training Program, Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota. Piderman
serves patients in the addiction programs, other areas of psychiatry, and the physical
rehabilitation unit. Her educational and research interests include spiritual well-being
and coping; particularly in the settings of addiction, mental illness, and rehabilitation.
She is published in several peer-reviewed journals and has spoken locally, nationally,
and internationally on these topics.

Rachel N. Remen, MD, is clinical professor of Family and Community Medicine at the
University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine. She is director of
the innovative UCSF course, The Healer’s Art, presently taught in 60 medical schools
nationwide. Remen is co-founder and medical director of the Commonweal Cancer
Help Program featured in the groundbreaking Bill Moyers' PBS series, Healing and the
Mind. She is founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness at Commonweal, a post-graduate and undergraduate program for physicians who wish to reclaim their calling and integrate Hippocratic values into their work. Remen has a 55-year personal history of Crohn’s disease and her work is a unique blend of the 2010 Mayo Spiritual Care Research Conference viewpoint of physician and patient. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Kitchen Table Wisdom, and the national bestseller, My Grandfather’s Blessings, which have been published in 18 languages. Remen is the recipient of three honorary degrees and recently was recognized with the Bravewell Award as one of the earliest pioneers of holistic and integrative medicine.

Tait D. Shanafelt, MD, is a consultant at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota in the
Division of Hematology and associate professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic College of
Medicine. He is a National Cancer Institute-funded translational researcher who spends a majority of his time developing new therapies for treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed manuscripts, as well as more than 45 abstracts, letters, and book chapters. In addition to his leukemia research, Shanafelt is actively involved in studies exploring the well-being of physicians. He is the director of the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine Program on Physician Well-Being, a clinical laboratory evaluating personal and organizational factors that contribute to physician satisfaction. His research in this area has involved physicians at all stages of their careers from medical school to practice, and has included several multi-center and national studies. Shanafelt has published widely on this topic, including works in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Journal of the American Medical Association.