Who are experts in the field of palliative care and human rights?

Mary V. Callaway, MME

Mary Callaway, MME is the Director of the International Palliative Care Initiative (IPCI) of the Public Health Program at the Open Society Institute. The goal of the initiative is to enhance palliative care development internationally with a specific focus on Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, South Africa, Southern Africa, and East Africa.

From 1994 to 2003 she served as the Associate Director for the Project on Death in America of the Open Society Institute, a 45 million dollar initiative to improve end of life care in the United States. Prior to joining OSI, she was the Administrator for the Pain and Palliative Care Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City for 16 years. In that position she served the Executive Director for the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Collaborating Center for Cancer Pain Research and Education. She also developed educational programs for health care professionals and managed over 4 million dollars a year in research grants and philanthropic support. She organized and managed the working group for the development and dissemination of the WHO 1996 monograph “Cancer Pain Relief and Palliative Care in Children”.

She is a founding member of the United States Cancer Pain Relief Committee. She is a member of the Steering Group for the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance and serves on both the advocacy and policy working groups. She is on the Steering Group of the International Children’s Palliative Care Network and a member of the African Palliative Care Association pain management working group which has planned and implemented three regional drug advocacy workshops to increase opioid availability.

She serves on the grants committee of the Virginia Gildersleeve Foundation and has served as a technical advisor to national and international foundations interested in advancing palliative care.

With Dr. Frank Ferris, she recently edited the JPSM volume on International Palliative Care.

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