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ICEOL Researcher Symposium Bios
Amy Abernethy, M.D. is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, Assistant Professor of Nursing at Duke University , and Adjunct Associate Lecturer at Flinders University in South Australia . Dr. Abernethy obtained her medical degree and post-graduate training in Internal Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology at Duke University ; she also pursued concentrated training in Palliative Medicine and Cancer Pain Management at Flinders University in South Australia . She has been awarded a 5-year Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Award that provides complete salary support while she develops a cancer symptom and palliative care clinical trials research program based in the Division of Medical Oncology at Duke University Medical Center . She is a faculty member of both the Duke Clinical Research Institute and the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center Cancer Control Program, and a Senior Fellow of the Duke Center for Clinical Health Policy Research. Dr. Abernethy's research focuses on conducting high quality clinical trials that generate evidence-based solutions for common problems in cancer symptoms and palliative care such as cancer pain, dyspnea, and health service delivery models. The designs of these trials specifically incorporate and test new methods to increase the feasibility of clinical research in palliative care. Current and recently completed studies include evaluations of morphine and oxygen for the management of intractable dyspnea, a general practitioner driven model for palliative care service delivery, educational strategies in palliative care pain management, and integration of information technology to improve clinical care and clinical research in palliative care. Clinically, Dr. Abernethy takes care of patients with leukemia and lymphoma undergoing high dose chemotherapy programs in the hospital.
Dr. Abernethy sincerely appreciates the support that the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life has provided for her clinical trial "An International Multi-Site Randomized Controlled Trial of Oxygen vs Medical Air for the Palliative Management of Refractory Dyspnea in Patients with PaO 2 >55. The O 2 Breathe Study." The Institute's support was fundamental to feasibility testing and being able to initiate execution this study. On behalf of all of the international investigative team for this study, we appreciate the support and look forward to presenting the Institute with the results.
Melanie J. Bonner, Ph.D. is an Assistant Clinical Professor with a primary faculty appointment in the Department of Psychiatry, Division of Medical Psychology and a secondary appointment in the Department of Surgery, Division of Neuro-Oncology. She also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Psychology: Social and Health Sciences at the University. In her role in the Division of Medical Psychology, Melanie is the Director of the Pediatric Psychology Service , a clinic that serves multiple pediatric specialty clinics at Duke. Additionally, Melanie is the staff psychologist for the Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Program, which is where she has developed her research program focused on parent and child adjustment across the illness spectrum. Her current work reflects the development and validation of a new instrument to assess parent adjustment.
Elizabeth C. Clipp, R.N., Ph.D. is Professor and Associate Dean for Research in the Duke University School of Nursing, and Professor in Medicine/Geriatrics at Duke University Medical Center . She also is Senior Fellow in the Duke Aging Center , a member of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center , and Associate Director for Research at the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) at the Durham VA Medical Center. She received undergraduate and master's degrees in Nursing from the University of Maryland , a PhD in Developmental Psychology from Cornell University , and completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Duke Center for Aging and Human Development. Dr. Clipp directs the NIH/NINR P20 Nursing Research Exploratory Center supporting nurse-initiated studies focused on the theme of "Trajectories of Aging and Care" (TRAC Center) and is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA).
Dr. Clipp's research contributions fall into three primary areas: a) trajectories of health and illness across the life course, b) informal caregiving in chronic disease contexts, especially cancer and dementia, and c) quality of life at the end of life. Her studies of dementia caregivers have shown that institutional placement resulted from caregiver characteristics and stress rather than patient functioning or disease severity; that the neediest caregivers often receive the least social support; that caregivers' use of psychotropic drugs is significantly higher than among non-caregivers, reflecting levels observed in institutionalized populations, and etiologies of caregivers' physical and emotional health problems are multi-factorial. She subsequently conducted clinical studies of patients with cancer and their spouse caregivers, and with AIDS patients and their spouses or partners to test the generalizability of earlier findings on dementia within other disease contexts. In addition, Dr. Clipp added caregiver outcomes to designs of industry-sponsored trials and demonstrated significant caregiver benefit.
This foundation resulted in The National Longitudinal Caregiving Study (NLCS), the largest longitudinal study to date of informal dementia caregivers, which followed from 1998 more than 2,300 community-dwelling caregivers with four yearly surveys. In this work, Dr. Clipp is examining multiple aspects of the caregiving career including physical and mental health effects of caregiving, caregivers' use of health services, informal care costs, and predictors of institutionalization. She and her colleagues also have used these data to estimate the costs of informal care. A consistent theme of her work is that caregiving experiences both influence and are markedly influenced by care recipients' illness trajectories. Her work that was supported by the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life used NLCS data from the broader dementia trajectory to identify the distinct caregiving challenges that occur in the final three months of life.
Harvey Jay Cohen, M.D. , is Professor of Medicine; Director, Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development; and Chief, Division of Geriatric Medicine at Duke University Medical Center; and Associate Chief of Staff for Geriatrics and Extended Care; and Director of the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) of the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. Dr. Cohen was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY , and received his undergraduate ( Brooklyn College ) and medical (SUNY-Downstate) education in New York City . He trained in internal medicine and in hematology/oncology at Duke University Medical Center.
In the late 1970's he helped initiate the Geriatric Fellowship program at Duke and subsequently helped formulate and become Chief of the interdepartmental Division of Geriatrics. In 1982 he assumed the role of Director of the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development. In addition, he led the successful effort to establish the Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center at the VAMC in Durham . Upon its initiation in 1984, he became Director of that program as well. Under his leadership the Duke geriatrics program has consistently been ranked in the top five in the country.
Dr. Cohen has published extensively with over 200 articles and book chapters on topics in geriatrics and hematology/oncology, with special emphasis on aspects of cancer and immunologic disorders in the elderly, and geriatric assessment. Dr. Cohen is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and served as President of the Society in 2000-01. He was named winner of the Freeman Award for 1998 and the Kent Award in 2004 by GSA. He was a member of the Board of Directors of The American Geriatrics Society from 1987; served as president from 1994-95; and Chairman of the Board from 1995-96. He has been a pioneer in the establishment of programs to train physician-scientists in geriatric medicine and in the establishment of geriatric oncology programs, and is recognized as one of the leading U.S. academic clinical investigators in geriatrics. In 1997, he was elected to membership in the American Association of Physicians, one of few geriatricians so honored. Dr. Cohen served as Chairman of the National Institute on Aging Board of Scientific Counselors from 1999-2003. He is President of the International Society of Geriatric Oncology. He serves on the advisory and review panels for a number of foundations, including the John A. Hartford Foundation, Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, American Foundation for Aging Research, and as a Senior Fellow of The Brookdale Foundation.
James L. Crenshaw, Ph.D ., Robert L. Flowers Professor of Old Testament, has taught since 1964, the last eighteen years at Duke, after the same number of years at Vanderbilt. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1984-85) to study the depiction of old age in Egyptian and Israelite wisdom literature, as well as fellowships from the NEH, Pew Evangelical Foundation, Society for Religion in Higher Education, ACLS, and Association of Theological Schools, he is a past president of the Duke chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and a member of several professional societies. He was the editor of the Monograph Series of the Society of Biblical Literature and currently edits a series on Personalities of the Old Testament for the University of South Carolina Press . He has been named the McCarthy Visiting Professor of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome for the academic year 2006-07.
He has written and edited more than thirty scholarly books. His Old Testament Wisdom (revised in 1998) has been a standard textbook since 1981. Besides commentaries on Ecclesiastes (O.T. Library), Joel (Anchor Bible), Sirach (New Interpreter's Bible), he has written monographs on various segments of biblical literature (e.g., Samson; Prophetic Conflict; The Psalms; Education in Ancient Israel; Urgent Advice and Probing Questions; A Whirlpool of Torment; Trembling at the Threshold of a Biblical Text ), as well as a study of the pre-eminent biblical interpreter of the twentieth century, Gerhard Von Rad. He is currently working on a book about the interpretive history of the book of Job and one on twentieth century research in wisdom literature.<
Kathleen Foley, M.D. , is an Attending Neurologist in the Pain and Palliative Care Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City . She is Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience and Clinical Pharmacology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and holds the Chair of the Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Pain Research.
In 1981, Dr. Foley was appointed chief of the newly formed Pain Service within the Department of Neurology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center . It was the first designated pain service in a cancer center in the United States . Dr. Foley was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science for her national and international efforts in the treatment of patients with cancer pain. She is currently Director of the Project on Death in America of the Open Society Institute. This project is focused on transforming the culture of death in America through funding initiatives in research, scholarship, and clinical care.
Dr. Foley has focused her career on the assessment and treatment of patients with cancer pain. She has defined the epidemiology, classified the common causes and defined the common pain syndromes that occur in this patient population. With her colleagues, she has developed scientific guidelines for the treatment of cancer pain with analgesic drug therapy through clinical pharmacologic studies of opioid drugs.
Dr. Foley is a past President of the American Pain Society and a past member of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Neurology and the International Association of the Study of Pain. She has received numerous awards and honors including the Distinguished Service Award from the American Cancer Society, the David Karnovsky Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the Frank Netter Award of the American Academy of Neurology.
As an expert consultant to the World Health Organization Cancer and Palliative Care Unit and as past director of a WHO Collaborating Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center , Dr. Foley chaired three expert committees resulting in the publication of three WHO monographs: Cancer Pain Relief (1986), Cancer Pain Relief and Palliative Care (1990) and Cancer Pain and Palliative Care in Children (1996).
Dr. Foley lives in New York with her husband, Charles Foley. They have two sons, Fritz and David.
Anthony Nicholas Galanos, M.A., M.D. is the Clinical Director of the Duke Palliative Care Service, Co-Director of the Palliative Care Fellowship at Duke, and a member of the Division of Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center (DUMC). A "Project Death in America Faculty Scholar", Dr Galanos was mentored by Dr James Tulsky as he studied end of life care at DUMC. These data were presented at Internal Medicine Grand Rounds in April 2005, and two abstracts have been presented at the national meeting of the American Geriatrics Society. As both a geriatrician, and a member of the hospitalist service, Dr Galanos has a passion for teaching and has been the recipient of both the Golden Apple Award in 2002 and the Eugene A Stead , MD Award in June , 2005 given by the House Staff for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Galanos has been affiliated with the Institute on Care at the End of Life since its inception and has coordinated efforts by the Institute, the School of Nursing, the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, and Duke Hospital in the founding of and growth of the Palliative Care Service at DUMC.
Laura Hanson, M.D., M.P.H. , is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill . Dr. Hanson graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1986. She trained in Internal Medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston , and completed fellowships in Geriatric Medicine and in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the University of North Carolina . In 1991 she was awarded an MPH degree in Epidemiology from the UNC School of Public Health.
Clinical and Educational Expertise : Dr. Hanson is board certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatric Medicine and Palliative Medicine. She practices in the UNC Geriatric Evaluation Clinic and co-directs the UNC Pain and Symptom Care Program, a clinical palliative care service for UNC Hospitals. Her teaching emphasizes the medical care of frail and dying patients, clinical ethics, and epidemiologic research methods. She has served on Ethics Committees for UNC Hospitals , the Society of General Internal Medicine, and the American Geriatrics Society.
Research Expertise : Dr. Hanson's research interests focus on health care decisions near the end of life for older and chronically ill patients, including care for the dying in long-term care settings. She has conducted numerous original investigations of care at the end of life, and has been recognized as a Soros Foundation Project on Death in America Scholar. Her most recent research projects include a prospective cohort study of decision-making about feeding tubes, a multi-state analysis of the quality of end of life care in long term care, a quality improvement intervention trial in nursing homes, and a study of barriers and facilitators to use of hospice in nursing homes. Dr. Hanson has experience with individual mentoring of more junior researchers, including junior medical faculty, graduate students in public health disciplines, and medical students. She has also served as research faculty to the UNC Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, and to the UNC K30 training program.
Marilyn Hartman, Ph.D. , is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . Her primary research area focuses on the cognitive and neuropsychological changes that occur as part of normal development in later life. Her research in this area has included studies of adult age differences in memory, attention, abstract thinking, and problem-solving and has received consistent funding from the National Institute on Aging. She has also worked on projects on family caregiving, and most recently has developed an interest in community-based programs that provide support to individuals facing serious illness, end of life, and disability.
Judith C. Hays, Ph.D., R.N. earned her undergraduate degree in English Literature from Wellesley College . She earned academic nursing degrees at Emory University and Yale University and a doctorate in psychosocial epidemiology of chronic disease and aging at the Yale School of Medicine. Her clinical experience includes public health nursing in New Haven CT and environs, and hospice inpatient and home care nursing at Connecticut Hospice, the oldest hospice program in the United States . Over the past 20 years, she developed an extensive research program in health-related processes in late life. Her studies of the dying process include: (a) profiles of patients who use primarily formal versus informal care at the end-of-life, (b) patient preferences for place of terminal care, (c) continuity of terminal care, (d) living arrangements and religious behaviors at the end of life; and (e) predictors of place of death. A hallmark of her research is its developmental perspective -- the assumption that humans never cease to change and grow in patterns that can be described and, to some degree, understood. She has demonstrated skills in a wide array of research methods to describe growth and change, from qualitative methods to hierarchical linear and latent trajectory models. She has taught research methods at both Yale and Duke University and published more than 70 articles and book chapters on death and dying, social support, and mental health. She completed a Mentored Research Scientist Development Award (K01), funded by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health in 2003 and was elected a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America in 2001. Currently, she serves as Editor of the peer-review journal, Public Health Nursing , and as Associate Professor and Chair of the Accelerated BSN Program at the Duke School of Nursing, where she is teaches community and population health nursing.
Dr. Kimberly S. Johnson is an Associate in the Division of Geriatric Medicine. She received her undergraduate education at Dillard University (1989-1993) in New Orleans , Louisiana and her M.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (1993-1997). She completed residency training in Internal Medicine (1997-2000) and spent a year as a chief resident (2000-2001) here at Duke University Medical Center . She stayed on at Duke for fellowship training in Geriatric Medicine (2001-2002) before joining the faculty in July 2002.
Dr. Johnson's clinical interests include primary care geriatric medicine and end-of-life care. She has a small community-based primary care geriatric medicine practice and provides care for a panel of elders residing in long-term care at a local continuing care retirement community. Additionally, Dr. Johnson attends on both the inpatient Geriatric Medicine Service and Palliative Care Service.
Dr. Johnson's research is aimed at understanding the influence of culture on end-of-life care. She is currently investigating cultural variation in satisfaction with end-of-life care, hospice use among minorities, and the role of spirituality in decision-making at the end of life
Keith G. Meador, M.D., Th.M., M.P.H. , is Professor of the Practice of Pastoral Theology and Medicine at Duke Divinity School where he teaches pastoral theology and pastoral care. He established the Theology and Medicine Program in the Divinity School and gives leadership to varied programmatic initiatives one of which is the Caring Communities Program, which seeks to support health ministries and form caring communities throughout the Carolinas through education of clergy, health care providers, and lay leaders in the community. The Theology and Medicine Program also includes academic opportunities for nursing, medical, divinity, and undergraduate students to pursue studies in theology and health and the practice of health ministries. Dr. Meador's scholarship focuses on pastoral theology interpreted through practices of caring and their formation within the Christian community, as well as the investigation of health ministries as a manifestation of these practices. A physician and board certified psychiatrist, his work builds on his clinical, research and teaching background in mental health, pastoral theology, and public health about which he lectures widely and his published numerous publications including the recently co-authored book, Heal Thyself: Spirituality, Medicine, and the Distortion of Christianity. He is co-director for the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health in the Duke University Medical Center , and holds a joint appointment as a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in the Duke School of Medicine. He also serves as a senior fellow in the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development.
Jean Correll Munn, M.S.W. is a doctoral student at the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina , Chapel Hill (UNC). She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Duke University and a Masters of Social Work degree from UNC. During her career as a doctoral student, Ms. Munn has served as a medical social worker and clinical coordinator at the Memory and Cognitive Disorders Clinic, Department of Neurology, UNC Hospitals; a project coordinator and research assistant at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research; and is currently an adjunct faculty member at the UNC School of Social Work. Her research interests focus on the needs of frail elders, especially those who are residents in long-term care, a setting in which Ms. Munn has clinical experience.
Ms. Munn's dissertation is a mixed methods approach to defining a good death for residents in long-term care. She received support and recognition for this work in the form of a John A. Hartford Doctoral Fellowship, the Anne-Linda Furstenburg Award for Qualitative Research, and the Gordon DeFriese Career Development Award in Aging Research. The quantitative component consists of scale items developed from the work of others and pilot-tested in the NIH-funded project, End-of-Life in Assisted Living and Nursing Homes (Sheryl Zimmerman, PI). The qualitative portion (funded by the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life) includes ten focus groups conducted with residents, staff and family caregivers concerning the elements of a good death for those who die in long-term care settings. From this mixed-methods approach, Ms. Munn will develop measures of a good death for competent and incompetent residents, designed to further research and inform practice in these settings.
Richard Payne, M.D. , an internationally known expert in the areas of pain relief, care for those near death, oncology and neurology, is the Director of the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life at the Duke Divinity School at Duke University . The Institute seeks to improve care at the end of life through interdisciplinary scholarship, teaching, and outreach.
Prior to his appointment at Duke, Dr. Payne led the Pain and Palliative Care Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City since 1998. Payne directed the program's clinical and rehabilitation services as well as research and training programs. Dr. Payne also held the Anne Burnett Tandy Chair in Neurology during his tenure at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. He also served as Professor of Neurology and Pharmacology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University.
From 2003-2004, Dr. Payne was President of the American Pain Society. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, the American Academy of Neurology, and the American Academy of Pain Medicine. As a member of the American Medical Association, Dr. Payne serves on the Education for Physicians in End-of-Life Care subcommittee of the Palliative Care Advisory Board.
Dr. Payne received his B.A. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and his M.D. from Harvard University . He completed his residence in medicine at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston , MA and his residence in neurology at the Cornell Campus of the New York Presbyterian Hospital , and a post-graduate fellowship in neuro-oncology and pain medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Laura Porter, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center and a member of the Cancer Prevention, Detection, and Control Program of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center . The ultimate goal of her research is to develop more effective ways to help patients with chronic illnesses and their family members cope with the symptoms and psychological demands associated with their diseases. Dr. Porter obtained her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Cancer Control, Education, and Prevention at Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . She is the author of 30 peer-reviewed publications and 4 book chapters. Her current research is primarily focused on couple-based interventions patients with cancer. She is PI of an NIH-funded study investigating the efficacy of a partner-assisted emotional disclosure intervention for patients with advanced GI cancer. She is Duke PI of a multi-site NIH-funded study investigating the efficacy of a couple-based cognitive-behavioral intervention for women with breast cancer. She is also a co-investigator on an NIH-funded study testing a caregiver-assisted coping skills training intervention for patients with lung cancer. Her work has also been funded by the American Cancer Society and the Susan G. Komen foundation.
Karen E. Steinhauser, Ph.D. is a Health Scientist with the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, VA Medical Center, Durham and an Assistant Research Professor, Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center and Senior Fellow with the Duke University Center for Aging. She is a VA Career Development Awardee. Dr. Steinhauser received her doctoral training in sociology at Duke where she specialized in the study of medical sociology and aging. Her dissertation examined the organizational evolution of hospice care. Particular attention centered on the influence of public funding, via Medicare, on a private sector volunteer organization. Following her graduate training, she completed post-doctoral research in Health Services Research and Development at the Durham VA Medical Center. Her post-doctoral research focused on identifying what patients, families and health care providers value at the end of life. The qualitative and quantitative results of that study served as the foundation in the design of a clinical instrument to assess the quality of dying (the QUAL-E). Dr. Steinhauser was the Co-Principal Investigator of the study to validate that instrument and is the Principal Investigator of a companion study to develop and validate a measure of the quality of family experience at the end of life (the QUAL-E fam). She also is Project Director and Co-Investigator of an NIH five-year study, "Trajectories of Serious Illness: Patients and Caregivers," which follows patients with advanced cancer, congestive heart failure, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and their caregivers for up to two years. Using data from monthly interviews, investigators will map end-of-life trajectories of physical functioning, psychosocial well-being, health services utilization, and spirituality. Finally, Dr. Steinhauser is Principal Investigator of a study examining the impact of discussions of life completion on symptoms and quality of life in hospice and seriously-ill hospitalized patients, a randomized control trial to assess a spirituality intervention.
James Tulsky, M.D. , is Director of the Center for Palliative Care and Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke University . He is also a member of the leadership team for the Institute on Care at the End of Life. Dr. Tulsky received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University , completed his medical degree at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago in 1987, and received his internal medicine training at the University of California , San Francisco (UCSF). He continued at UCSF as chief medical resident and subsequently as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. In 1993, he joined the faculty of Duke University . He was in the first cohort of the Project on Death in America Soros Faculty Scholars, and is the recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Physicians Faculty Scholars Award, a VA Health Services Research Career Development Award, and most recently the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest national award given by the White House Office of Science and Technology for early career investigators.
Dr. Tulsky has a longstanding interest in doctor-patient communication and quality of life at the end of life, and has published widely in these areas. His current research focuses on the evaluation and enhancement of communication between oncologists and patients with advanced cancer, identification of clinical, psychosocial and spiritual trajectories of patients at the end of life, and developing tools to use with patients and family members to measure quality of life at the end of life.
Allen Verhey, Ph.D. graduated from Calvin College and from Calvin Theological Seminary. He earned his PhD in Religious Studies (Christian Ethics) from Yale University in 1975.
He taught for nearly 30 years at Hope College in Holland , Michigan , where he was the Blekkink Professor of Religion. From 1992-1994 he served as Director and Fellow of the Institute of Religion at the Texas Medical Center in Houston , Texas . There he also served as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Community Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, as Adjunct Professor in the Center for Ethics, Medicine, and Public Issues, and as Rockwell Distinguished Scholar and Visiting Lecturer in Religion at the University of Houston . Last year he joined the faculty of the Divinity School of Duke University as Professor of Christian Ethics.
His research and publications have focused on the relation of Scripture to Christian Ethics and on the relation of Christian Ethics to issues in Bioethics. The anthology that he co-edited with Stephen Lammers on theological reflection on medical ethics, On Moral Medicine , won a CHOICE award as one of the outstanding academic books of 1987. His two most recent books are Reading the Bible in the Strange World of Medicine (2003) and Remembering Jesus: Christian Community, Scripture, and the Moral Life (2001).
Sheryl Zimmerman, Ph.D. , is an associate professor, School of Social Work, and co-director and senior research fellow of the Program on Aging, Disability, and Long-Term Care at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; she has conducted numerous research projects directly studying nearly ten thousand residents of long-term care settings and has published widely.