Key Collaborators
Scot Bateman, MD, is a professor and intensive care specialist who is board certified in hospice and palliative medicine. He is the former chief of the Division of Pediatric Critical Care and now serves as director of the Office of Ethics at UMass Memorial Medical Center since 2019. He leads the Ethics Elective for the UMass Palliative Medicine Fellowship and precepts their experiences in the pediatric ICU.
Steven Burokas, DNP, AGNP-C, has worked at Notre Dame Health Care since 2005 when he started as a dietary aide and later as a nurse in long-term acute care. He obtained his master’s and doctorate degree in nursing and has been a hospice and palliative nurse practitioner since 2020. His interest in palliative care began after caring for his grandparents at end of life. He is passionate about teaching and research, including better integration of hospice care in nursing home settings.
David Cachia, MD, is an associate professor and executive council chair of the Division of Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Medicine. He is a neuro-oncologist and researcher who focuses on translational science to improve clinical outcomes for patients with brain and spinal cord tumors.
Raphael A. Carandang, MD, FAAN, is a vascular and critical care neurologist. He was the Neurology Residency program director from 2015-2020 and created the Neurohumanities Curriculum to emphasize the humanistic aspects of practice, improve self-awareness, and explore the intersection of art and neurology. He also established and directed the Neuro ICU Fellowship program, the Department of Neurology Annual Research Celebration, and runs the Faculty Care Program. His research interests include traumatic brain injury, hemorrhagic, and ischemic stroke. He is the site primary investigator for the Stroke NET consortium, the OPTIMISM TBI cohort study, and the clinical trial BOOST-3.
Anindita Deb, MD, is an associate professor of Neurology & Neurosurgery and co-chief of the Movement Disorders division in the Department of Neurology. Her clinical interests include Parkinson's Disease, Huntington Disease, atypical parkinsonism, tremor, ataxia, and dystonia with expertise in deep brain stimulation programming and botulinum toxin injections. She is director of the Huntington Disease Center of Excellence. In addition to her clinical roles, she is a passionate educator and serves as the director of the Pathways Program in the VISTA curriculum. She has also recently been selected as the director of the Global Health arm of the Collaborative in Health Equity aiming to coalesce global health partnerships from across the university and align with local community-wide efforts centered on restorative justice.
Mitchell Gitkind, MD, is a professor and assistant dean for GME Quality and Safety Education at UMass Chan Medical School. He has extensive experience with physician faculty and trainee education in health systems science, including quality improvement and patient safety. Dr. Gitkind has Black Belt-level Lean/A3 certification and teaches and mentors medical and graduate nursing students, residents, fellows, and medical staff.
Mary Beth Heffernan, MFA, is professor of sculpture, photography, and interdisciplinary art at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. Her 2014 social practice PPE Portrait Project to humanize the frightening protective gear worn by Ebola workers in Liberia garnered international recognition on NPR, PRI, the BBC the Los Angeles Review of Books, Hyperallergic, CSNBC and many other publications. The PPE Portrait Project was cited as an exemplary art and medicine collaboration in The Academies of Sciences-Engineering-Medicine Consensus Report of 2018, and featured in the 2019 permanent exhibition, Being Human, at the Wellcome Collection in London. In addition to UMass Chan, Heffernan is partnering with over ten medical centers to adopt the project, including Stanford Medical School, USC-Keck, Boston Children's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Providence St. Joseph.
Elizabeth “Beth” Kay, MS, CNP, GNP-BC, ACHPN, joined Notre Dame Healthcare in 2021 and provides home-base palliative care. Previously, she worked with Care Dimensions delivering palliative care in the MetroWest area and at Emerson Hospital. While living in the Kansas City area, she worked in a 32-bed hospice house with Kansas City Hospice and Palliative Care. She also practiced bed-side nursing for 14 years. As a nurse practitioner, she has mentored many NP students as part of her work in palliative care over the last 10 years.
Kimi Kobayashi, MD, is the chief quality officer for UMass Memorial Medical Group and Medical Center. He is a hospitalist and leader who focuses on improving healthcare delivery, quality, safety, and the development of future physician leaders. His expertise includes clinical operations and clinical informatics. He previously worked as a physician leader at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Robert E. Layne, MEd, is assistant dean of Outreach Programs at UMass Chan Medical School and an instructor in the Department of Radiology. Dr. Layne oversees the Summer Enrichment Program, a four-week residential program for college sophomores and juniors who are from educationally (first-generation) and economically disadvantaged backgrounds to improve their competitive standing for admission to medical, professional, and/or graduate school. Established in 1987, the curriculum includes enrichment classes in physics, english/communication skills and cultural and contemporary health issue seminars, complete with engaging activities that help to enhance the participants’ academic, communication, and social skills.
Constantinos (Taki) Michaelidis, MD, MBA, MS, is an internal medicine physician by training and practices as a virtual home hospitalist in the UMass Memorial Medical Center (UMMMC) Hospital at Home program, where he is medical director and faculty in the Program in Digital Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School. Prior to joining UMMMC, he was senior medical director in the Atrius Health Hospital at Home program. There, he supported local and national hospital at home program development and implemented new acute (ED in Home) and post-acute (SNF at Home) home-based care models for a predominantly frail, medically complex, and home-bound population in Massachusetts.
Suzanne Mitchell, MD, MS, is an associate professor and health services researcher in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. She is a palliative care physician and an expert in clinical delivery system solutions to improve chronic disease management and care transitions for vulnerable patients and family caregivers. Dr. Mitchell recently led a 5-year national study of mental health support for patients with acute illness and depressive symptoms using telephonic cognitive behavior therapy to reduce avoidable readmissions. She is an award-winning woman entrepreneur and led an NIH-funded clinical trial studying the use of social gaming technology for chronic disease self-management education. As a clinician-educator, she teaches on topics of team-based care, motivational interviewing, cross-cultural care, and shared decision making.
Laurel O’Connor, MD, MSc, is an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine and faculty in the Program in Digital Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School, where she serves as the medical director of the institutional mobile integrated health program. She is a clinician-investigator whose research interests are in healthcare delivery redesign and the use of hybrid digital-mobile interventions to improve community-based care for adults living with serious illnesses.
Margaret Ayo Owegi, DO, specializes in neuromuscular disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), myasthenia gravis, muscular dystrophy, myopathy, and peripheral neuropathy. Her research focus is on ALS clinical trials. Dr. Owegi completed medical school at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences. She completed a neurology residency and neuromuscular fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Timothy Sannes, PhD, completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship in palliative care and aging at the University of Colorado, where he studied the chronic stress of family caregiving. Since then, he has been heavily involved in developing supportive interventions for cancer patients and their families. At UMass, he is the attending psychologist for the Division of Hematology/Oncology and associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, where he actively collaborates with Palliative Medicine on academic projects and better supporting patients and their families facing cancer.
Pascal Scemama de Gialluly, MD, MBA, is chief of the Division of Pain Medicine in the Department of Anesthesia and an interventional pain specialist. Prior to his medical career, Dr. Scemama had a successful career on Wall Street where he held senior executive positions. His direct experience of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, led him then to pursue a career in medicine. His clinical interests include the prevention and treatment of chronic pain after surgery as well as the use of advanced techniques such as neuromodulation (spinal cord or peripheral nerve stimulators) or intrathecal pumps to treat complex chronic pain.
Nancy Skehan, MD, is a primary care internist, hospitalist, and Internal Medicine Clerkship director at UMass Chan Medical School. She partners with palliative care faculty to deliver a required simulation-based training for all 3rd year students in practicing goals of care conversations with a patient actor living with advanced heart failure. Dr. Skehan’s expertise also includes assessment in medical education, evidence-based medicine, transgender health, and transitions of care. She has served as core educational faculty for the UMass Teaching of Tomorrow workshop and the Duke University Teaching and Leading in Evidence-Based Practice Workshop.
Kara Smith, MD, is an associate professor, neurologist, and movement disorders specialist in the Department of Neurology. She is a clinician scientist who focuses on non-motor symptoms and speech and communication disorders in Parkinson’s disease, cognitive complications such as mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson’s disease dementia and hospital-acquired delirium in neurodegenerative diseases. She has partnered with the Palliative Care division to develop a novel research program focused on the study of music-based interventions and music therapy to prevent and treat hospital-acquired delirium in neurological patients.
Apurv Soni, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Division of Health System Science in the Department of Medicine. He is director of the Program in Digital Medicine and a senior physician solutions architect for the Center for Digital Health Solutions at UMass Memorial Health. His goal is to use digital health technologies in resource-limited communities to improve health outcomes and reduce disparities. He is a nationally recognized expert in digital decentralized clinical studies within home, ambulatory, acute, and post-acute settings. Dr. Soni conducted seven national studies including 100,000 participants to assess the performance of rapid antigen tests for diagnosing a SARS-CoV-2 infection and implementation of a nationwide home-based test-to-treat program for COVID-19 and Influenza. His published work led to new national policy guidance from the Centers for Disease Control, Federal Drug Administration, and the White House. Dr. Soni is a leading mentor among graduate training programs at UMass Chan including pre-doctoral candidates and post-doctoral fellows.
Jennifer Tjia, MD, MSCE, FAAHPM, is a professor (tenure track) in the Division of Epidemiology in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences. She is a geriatric palliative care physician whose research agenda aims to improve healthcare delivery for vulnerable populations. She is Co-PI of an NIH R01 grant to conduct a mixed-methods study to disentangle the relationships between residential segregation, neighborhood deprivation and healthcare utilization in serious illness, and a R01 grant for a clinical trial to evaluate an implicit bias recognition and mitigation training program for clinicians. She is also PI of a completed R21 to pilot test a deprescribing intervention for home hospice. She received a K24 award from the NIH to mentor promising early-stage investigators in palliative medicine research. Dr. Tjia was a recipient of a 2015 Cambia Health Foundation Sojourns Leadership Scholar award and served as co-lead of the Investigator Development Core of the US Deprescribing Research Network.
Shaun Toomey, MD, is an assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care in the Department of Medicine. He completed the UMass Palliative Medicine Fellowship in 2022-23 and started a pulmonary-palliative care outpatient clinic as a partnership between divisions. He is a sought-after clinician-educator and 2022 inductee of the Gold Humanism Honor Society at UMass Chan.