Terry Altilio ACSW is Coordinator of Social Work for the Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. She is a recipient of a Social Work Leadership Award from the Open Society Institute's Project on Death in America.  She is secretary of the New York State Cancer and AIDS Pain Initiative, on the Board of the American Alliance of Cancer Pain Initiatives and  Chair of the Pain and Palliative Care Special Interest Group of  the Association of Oncology Social Workers.  Prior experience includes 14 years in Oncology Social Work: 7 years with the Pain and Palliative are Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and 7 years in a community hospital.  In addition to direct work with patients and families, she has lectured nationally and internationally on topics such as pain management, palliative care and psychosocial issues in end of life care.  She has co-authored publications on psychosocial issues in end of life and caregiver advocacy issues.  

This project developed a fellowship for a post graduate social worker within the Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care under the leadership of Russell Portenoy MD with opportunity to learn from multidisciplinary experts across practice settings working with patients along the continuum of life threatening illness.  In addition to focusing on core competencies, the fellowship provides opportunity and encouragement to lecture, publish, explore grant writing and evolve a listserv for social workers involved in Palliative and End of Life Care.  The listserv, an internet discussion group, currently has 109 participants creating an opportunity for networking, education and support across practice settings. A primary focus of this project is advocacy for inclusion of multidimensional pain and symptom management as a competency for social workers and an essential element to improve care of patients and families along the continuum of illness and at end of life.  To this end, the Department Web Site WWW.StopPain will create a Social Work Page which will allow for dissemination of comprehensive teaching modules with particular emphasis on pain and symptom management.