David Kissane COSA 2015 ASM

David Kissane

David W. Kissane, MD is an academic psychiatrist, psycho-oncology researcher and palliative care physician. He is currently the Head of the Department of Psychiatry for Monash University in Australia, previously the Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and, before that, the Foundation Chair of Palliative Medicine at the University of Melbourne. His academic interests include group, couples and family psychotherapy trials, communication skills training, studies of existential distress, and the ethics of end-of-life care. He developed a cognitive-existential model of group therapy for women with early stage breast cancer, which ameliorated fear of recurrence, and his trial of supportive-expressive group therapy for advanced breast cancer showed the prevention of depression alongside improved quality of life. He is best known for his model of family therapy delivered to ‘at risk’ families during palliative care, which prevents complicated grief and depression in bereavement. His work on demoralization as a variation of depression in the medically ill has preceded interventions to promote meaning-based coping. At MSKCC, Prof Kissane established a Communication Skills Training and Research Laboratory, which developed an applied curriculum for oncology, training over 1000 clinicians. His books include Bereavement Care for Families with Routledge (2014), Handbook of Psychotherapy in Cancer Care with Wiley-Blackwell (2011), Handbook of Communication in Oncology and Palliative Care with Oxford University Press (2010), Depression and Cancer for the World Psychiatric Association/Wiley (2011) and Family Focused Grief Therapy with Open University Press (2002, 2008). Prof. Kissane was awarded the Jimmie C. Holland Chair in Psycho-oncology at MSKCC, recognized by the International Psycho-Oncology Society in 2008 with their Arthur Sutherland Award for lifetime achievement, and awarded the Gerald Klerman Award in 2012 by Cornell University for his leadership and scholastic achievements.