Innovations in End-of-Life Care
an international journal of leaders in end-of-life care

Susan D. Block, MD (United States)
Dr. Susan D. Block is Chief of the Adult Psychosocial Oncology Program at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and a Member of the Division of Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Block is also the National Program Director for the Project on Death in America Faculty Scholars Program and the Co-Director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care. She has been active in palliative care and medical education reform for many years.

Eduardo Bruera, MD (United States/South America)
Dr. Eduardo Bruera is the Director of the Department of Symptom Control and Palliative Care at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas in Houston. Previously, Dr. Bruera served as the Director of the Division of Palliative Care Medicine at the University of Alberta and the Clinical Director of the Edmonton Regional Palliative Care Program. Dr. Bruera was Professor of Oncology and the Alberta Cancer Foundation Chair in Palliative Medicine at the University of Alberta. He has been integral to the W.H.O./P.A.H.O. Palliative Care Program for Latin America. Dr. Bruera was born in Argentina and graduated from the University of Rosario in 1979. His main academic interests in palliative care relate to research on the assessment and management of the main symptom problems in patients with terminal cancer.

Ira Byock, MD (United States)
Dr. Ira Byock is the director of The Palliative Care Service in Missoula, Montana, immediate, past president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, and the founder and President of the Missoula Demonstration Project, the first grassroots, community-wide intervention aimed at involving all sectors of the lay and professional community in an effort to improve the care of the dying.

Thomas Delbanco, MD (United States)
Dr. Thomas Delbanco is director of internal medicine at The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Picker Institute which is dedicated to enhancing patient involvement in health care.

Alan R. Fleischman, MD (United States)
Dr. Alan R. Fleischman is Senior Vice President of The New York Academy of Medicine and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Clinical Professor of Epidemiology and Social Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Born in New York City, he graduated from the City College of New York and from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and then continued his education in pediatrics and neonatology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and at the National Institutes of Health. In 1994, he became Senior Vice President of the New York Academy of Medicine, where he is responsible for initiatives in urban health, education, public policy, ethics, and public health.

Betty Ferrell, RN,PhD,FAAN (United States)
Dr. Betty Ferrell has been in oncology nursing for 23 years and has focused her clinical expertise and research in pain management. Her work focuses on issues such as Pain and Quality of Life, Pain in the Elderly, and the Family Perspective of Pain Management. Dr. Ferrell is a Research Scientist at the City of Hope National Medical Center. In 1989, Dr. Ferrell was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She has over 160 publications in peer-reviewed journals and texts in the areas of pain, quality of life and end-of-life care. She lectures extensively both nationally and internationally to interdisciplinary groups on these topics.

Irene Higginson, PhD (United Kingdom)
Dr. Irene Higginson is Professor of Palliative Care and Policy, King's College and St. Christopher's Hospice, London, England. A physician specializing in palliative medicine and public health medicine (or epidemiology), Dr. Higginson trained at Nottingham University School of Medicine. She has worked in hospice, palliative home care and hospital care, as well as on policy in health authorities and (for a short while) in the department of health for the United Kingdom. Dr. Higginson has published widely on clinical and organizational audit in palliative medicine, quality of life measurement, and evaluation of services and therapies. She developed the STAS (Support Team Assessment Schedule) which is being used to audit palliative care teams all over the world, and has recently designed a new audit tool, the palliative care outcome scale (POS), that has both a staff and patient version. Dr. Higginson serves as assistant editor of the journal Palliative Medicine and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Palliative Care and the Journal of Palliative Medicine.

Stein Kaasa, MD, PhD (Norway)
Dr. Stein Kaasa is chair of the Palliative Medicine Unit at the Department of Oncology, Trondheim Regional Hospital. Furthermore, he is a professor of palliative medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Dr. Kaasa works as a clinician in the Palliative Care Unit and is the incoming president of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC).

Linda Kristjanson, PhD (Australia)
Dr. Linda Kristjanson is the Professor of Palliative Care Nursing at Edith Cowan University and Director of Hospice Research for Silver Chain Hospice Service in Western Australia. She also serves as Research Consultant to the Cancer Clinical Services Unit at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth, Western Australia. Dr. Kristjanson leads a number of palliative care research teams, focusing on the care needs of terminally ill patients and their families.

Neil MacDonald, CM, MD, FRCP(C), FRCP(Edin), LLD(HC) (Canada)
Neil MacDonald is a medical oncologist and former cancer centre administrator who is currently working at the Centre for Bioethics (Clinical Research Institute of Montreal) and at McGill University. In addition, he works in the Palliative Care Programme of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal. With respect to work in the field of palliative care education, he has edited The Canadian Palliative Care Curriculum (in conjunction with the Canadian Palliative Care Education Group) and, more recently, a textbook titled Palliative Medicine: A Case-Based Manual, based on the Curriculum. He also serves as a co-editor of the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine.

Juan M. Núñez Olarte, MD,PhD (Spain)
Dr. Juan M. Núñez Olarte is a specialist in Internal Medicine and Palliative Medicine and is currently a practicing physician in the Palliative Care Unit, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Madrid. He has also worked in palliative care units in Canada and USA. He is presently a member of both the Board of Directors of the Spanish Association for Palliative Care (SECPAL), and the Steering Committee of the Research Network of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC). Dr. Núñez Olarte holds a PhD in History of Medicine and has published extensively.

Laurence O'Connell, PhD (United States)
Dr. Laurence O'Connell is President of the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics in Chicago, Illinois, and is a well-known ethicist and an advocate for attending to the spiritual dimensions of providing care near the end of life.

Carla Ripamonti, MD (Italy)
Dr. Carla Ripamonti is an oncologist and clinical pharmacologist at the Pain Therapy and Palliative Care division of the National Cancer Institute in Milan, Italy and is an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Oncology at Alberta University in Canada, where she is also a lecturer. Dr. Ripamonti. s special area of interest is currently pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of opiods. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Research Network of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC).

Robert Ubell (United States)
Mr. Robert Ubell is director of Web-based Distance Learning at Stevens Institute of Technology, where he launched the school's first online graduate program, WebCampus.Stevens. At Stevens, he is a member of its Distance Learning Committee, chair of the school's Ad Hoc Committee on Web-based Intellectual Property Rights, and a member of The Graduate School's Management Committee.

Mr. Ubell has held distinguished positions in publishing, education, and e-commerce. He was vice-president and editor-in-chief of Plenum Publishing Corporation, editor of the National Magazine Award-winning monthly, The Sciences, and American publisher of the British science weekly, Nature. He was also founding publisher of Nature Biotechnology. For more than a dozen years, he headed his own consulting firm, Robert Ubell Associates. Mr. Ubell has taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University's College of Physicians & Surgeons. Most recently, he was president of BioMedNet, an Internet company, and executive vice president for new media at Marcel Dekker.

Mr. Ubell is the author of more than 40 articles in The New England Journal of Medicine, Physics Today, New Scientist, The Scientist, Science, Nature, Nature Biotechnology, and The Sciences. Currently, he serves on the board of the National Academy of Engineering's Public Information Committee, is a member of the Board of Directors of Cambridge Linux, and is a distance learning observer for the accrediting body, Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

Michael Zenz, MD (Germany)
Dr. Michael Zenz is a Full Professor of Anaesthesiology and is the Director of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain Therapy at BG University Clinic Bergmannsheil. He brings considerable experience in editing to this project, as he has served as chief editor for Der Schmerz, been on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, and worked as co-editor for Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology.

Zbigniew Zylicz, MD,PhD (Netherlands)
Dr. Zbigniew Zylicz was born in Poland in 1955. He graduated "cum laude" as a medical doctor in 1979 from the Gdansk University for Medical Sciences. In 1980, he moved to the Netherlands where he was trained as an internist and oncologist at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. He holds a PhD in clinical pharmacology. Since 1994, Dr. Zylicz has been a medical director of Hospice Rozenheuvel in Rozendaal, a pioneering palliative care unit. He teaches palliative medicine at the University of Nijmegen, is the author of many articles and several books and serves as a "National Contact Point" for the Netherlands within the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC).