Keynote Presenter

Christina M. Puchalski, MD is an associate professor of medicine and health sciences and an associate professor of health services management and leadership at The George Washington University Schools of Medicine and Public Health. She is also the founder and director of The George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health, a center that develops educational, clinical, and research programs for physicians and other healthcare professionals regarding the role of spirituality and health in medicine.

Dr. Puchalski joined the faculty of The George Washington University School of Medicine in 1998. She is board certified in internal medicine and in palliative care. She has an active clinical practice at the University. Her research interests include the role of spirituality in healthcare, especially at the end of life, the role of clergy in health and in end-of-life care, and the value of educational programs in spirituality and medicine.

She has received the Association of American Medical Colleges and Pfizer’s 1999 Award for the Medical Humanities Initiative and the 2001 Faculty Humanism Award given by the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey. In 2005 she was inducted into the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism Honor Society and received the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine award. Dr. Puchalski has chaired a national education conference sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). She has also chaired a task force with the AAMC on developing guidelines for teaching spirituality, end-of-life, and cultural issues in medical education. She has been associate course director for Harvard Medical School and the Mind/Body Medical Institute's annual Spirituality & Healing in Medicine conference for five years.

Dr. Puchalski is published widely in academic journals and books and has been featured in major newspapers and network television. Her first book, A Time for Listening and Caring: Spirituality and the Care of the Chronically Ill and Dying, was published last year by Oxford University Press.