William Breitbart, M.D. is Chief of the Psychiatry Service, Interim Chairman, and Attending Psychiatrist, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY. Dr. Breitbart is also Attending Psychiatrist, Pain & Palliative Care Service, Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Medical College of Cornell University
A graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University, Dr. Breitbart is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Psychiatry, and Psychosomatic Medicine. He received both a Clinical Fellowship (1985-86) and a Career Development Award (1986-89) from the American Cancer Society. He was a Soros Faculty Scholar of the Open Society Institute, Project on Death in America (1995-1998). Dr. Breitbart was a founding member 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 Immediate Past President of the International Psycho-oncology Society. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the American Pain Society and is a member of the International Association for the Study of Pain. He was a panel member for the American Psychiatric Association Guidelines for the Management of Delirium, and the AHCPR Cancer Pain Management Guidelines. Dr. Breitbart served as a member of the NIH Behavioral Medicine Study Section for 15 years.
Dr. Breitbart's research efforts have focused on psychiatric aspects of palliative care and have included studies of interventions for anxiety, depression, desire for death and delirium in cancer and AIDS patients. Other research efforts include investigating the neuropsychiatric problems of HIV-infected patients, including pain, fatigue and other symptoms. Most recently, Dr. Breitbart has developed novel psychotherapy interventions aimed at sustaining meaning and improving spiritual well-being in the terminally ill. Dr. Breitbart has had continuous NIH RO1 funding of investigator initiated research since 1989. Dr. Breitbart received the 2003 Research Award from the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine, the 2007 Donald Oken Award from the American Psychosomatics Society, and the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Liaison Psychiatry. He is the 2009 recipient of the Arthur Sutherland Lifetime Achievement Award for the International Psycho-oncology Society. He is the 2009 recipient of the Willet F. Whitmore Award for Clinical Excellence, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Breitbart was the recipient of the Thomas Hackett Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine. He is the 2013 recipient of the Jimmie Holland Award from the American Psychosocial Oncology Society.
Dr. Breitbart has published extensively on the psychiatric complications of cancer and AIDS with 125 peer review publications and over 150 chapters and review papers. In addition, Dr. Breitbart has edited 7 textbooks including Psychiatric Aspects of Symptom Management in the Cancer Patient, published by the American Psychiatric Press, Psycho-oncology - 1st and 2nd Editions(co-editor with Dr. Jimmie Holland) and Handbook of Psychiatry in Palliative Medicine- 1st and 2nd Editions (co-editor with Dr. Harvey Chochinov) both by Oxford University Press, and Psychosocial Aspects of Pain: A Handbook for Health Care Providers (co-editor with Dr. Robert H. Dworkin) by IASP Press. Dr. Breitbart is currently writing a textbook on Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy for Oxford University Press. Dr. Breitbart is Editor-in-Chief, of Cambridge University Press’ international palliative care journal entitled, “Palliative & Supportive Care”. Dr. Breitbart also helped found IPOS Press, the publications arm of the International Psycho-oncology Society.
Acceptance of Death as a Goal of Psychosocial Palliative Care
Abstract
The goals of optimal palliative care will be presented, and a case will be made for expanding the focus of optimal palliative care beyond a focus on pain and physical symptom control to also include psychiatric, psychosocial, spiritual and existential domains of palliative care , ultimately culminating in the patient’s acceptance of death. Acceptance of death will be defined and discussed in all it’s complexity. Evidence will be presented that demonstrates that palliative care patients who are able to achieve a sense of peaceful awareness of prognosis have less depression , better quality of death, and better advanced care planning, and fewer bereavement complications in family members. A set of Existential goals in palliative care will be described and new psychosocial interventions that can serve as tools to help palliative care clinicians work with patients towards these goals are described.
