NEWS RELEASE - MARCH 3, 2010
For more information, contact:
Dionne Dougall-Bass, 888-969-7446, dionne@burnesscommunications.com
Nick Seaver, 301-652-1558, nseaver@burnesscommunications.com
MAYDAY PAIN & SOCIETY FELLOWSHIP:
CALL FOR 2010 APPLICATIONS
Six New Fellows to Join Community of Experts Advocating for the Pain Management Field for the Pain Management Field
Apply online at www.maydayfellows.org
WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 3, 2010) The Mayday Fund, a New York City foundation dedicated to alleviating the incidence, degree, and consequence of human physical pain, announced today that it will begin accepting applications for the 2010 Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship; A Media & Policy Fellows Initiative. This is the sixth year of the program, which is designed to equip physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, scientists, policy experts, and legal scholars with the necessary skills to become effective advocates and spokespeople about pain issues in the United States and Canada.
Developing their communications skills through the Fellowship, the six experts chosen will be poised to move the field forward with their willingness to educate and work with the media, policymakers, advocates, and health and business leaders. Six Fellows are chosen each year, and the Fellowship program runs through 2011.
Once selected, the six Fellows will attend a four-day training in Washington, D.C. on October 25-28, 2010 to develop skills in connecting with local and national media, writing blogs and commentary, building relationships with university public affairs and government relations leadership, and talking with federal and state elected officials. They will learn how to deliver messages through new online media. Each Fellow will have five months of coaching with a communications officer to track progress on their plans and engage in advocacy outreach.
Past Mayday Fellows have been successful in advocating for the pain field. Among their achievements, some have been interviewed for live television or radio; served as advisors to producers working on longer segments on pain; been accepted to a policy post on Capitol Hill; published editorials and letters to the editor; and mentored junior colleagues in the skills needed to effectively communicate, both generally and with the media. Among the 30 Fellows now active, most regularly use the tools they received in training to advance their advocacy goals.
The Fellowship Program is steered by an Advisory Committee made up of some of the nation's leading experts in the field. Russell K. Portenoy, MD, Chairman of the Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, chairs the committee.
"Over the years, the Fellowship has built a very strong and successful cadre of advocates eager to engage stakeholders on the topic of pain," Portenoy said. "To continue building on this, we're searching for the next class of Fellows who have the time, commitment and passion to bring their voices to the field, deliver important messages about pain care, and ultimately have real impact on the lives of people in pain."
The Fellows will develop skills to advocate and communicate on many of the pain issues they know most closely, including pediatric pain, chronic pain, the treatment of pain with prescription pain medications, non-medical treatment for pain, pain policy, clinical and basic science research on pain, and disparities in treating pain.
Candidates must be accomplished experts, clinicians or researchers in pain management, established at an institution with peer-reviewed research, and able and willing to devote a significant amount of time to using the skills learned in the Fellowship. They must show an interest in going beyond their professional pursuits to inspire change and make an impact on the pain field.
Those interested can apply online at www.maydayfellows.org
Established in 1992, the Mayday Fund is dedicated to further Shirley Steinman Katzenbach's commitment to social and medical causes. Her special interest in the treatment of pain forms the core of the Fund's mission. Over the last fourteen years, Mayday has supported many different projects, among them, surveys of public attitudes to pain and its treatment, role model and documentation programs, assistance to public and professional advocacy groups, and clinical and academic research.
On the Advisory Committee for the Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship are Chair Russell K. Portenoy, MD; James N. Campbell, MD, Executive-in-Residence at InterWest Partners, CEO of Arcion Therapeutics, Inc. and Professor of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University; Scott Fishman, MD, Professor and Chief, Division of Pain Medicine in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of California, Davis; Kathleen M. Foley, MD, Medical Director of the International Palliative Care Initiative of the Public Health Program, Open Society Institute and Attending Neurologist in the Pain and Palliative Care Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Sandra H. Johnson, JD, Professor Emerita of Law and Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis University; Patrick John McGrath, PhD, Vice President of Research at IWK Health Centre; Joan Teno, MD, MS, Professor of Community Health and Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University; and Lonnie Zeltzer, MD, Director of Pediatric Pain Program and Professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA Pediatric Pain Program.
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