Speaker: Robert L. Klitzman, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at the Valegos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Joseph Mailman School of Public Health and Director of the Masters of Bioethics Programs at Columbia University

Abstract: Patients and their families confronting death and dying often wrestle with profound spiritual, religious and existential challenges, seeking sources of hope, meaning and purpose, often while having to make excruciating end of life decisions. Physicians commonly have little training on how to approach these difficult topics and frequently avoid such conversations. Increasingly, hospital chaplains fill these gaps and have developed ways of doing so, mediating conflicts among providers, patients and families. In increasingly fractured and strained health care systems, chaplains also aid providers experiencing moral distress but face challenges as well, often feeling marginalized and under-resourced. What should be the roles of existential, spiritual and religious issues, and of chaplins in healthcare? When, how and why should providers broach these topics? This talk draws on in-depth research interviews to prove these realms, and the ways that enhanced education, practice, research and policy and potentially assist many patients, families and providers.

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