NEWS RELEASE - MARCH 3, 2008

For more information, contact:
Carol Schadelbauer or Nick Seaver at (301) 652-1558

MAYDAY PAIN & SOCIETY FELLOWSHIP:
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS 2008

Six New Fellows to Join a Community of Experts Advocating
for the Pain Management Field

Apply online at www.maydayfellows.org

WASHINGTON D.C. (March 3, 2008) 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 2008 Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship; A Media and Policy Initiative. This is the fifth year of the program designed to equip physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, scientists, and legal scholars with the necessary skills to become effective advocates and spokespeople about pain issues in the United States and Canada. Developing their communication skills, 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 2009.

Once selected, the six fellows will attend a four-day training in Washington, D.C. (October 20-23, 2008), developing individual advocacy plans to include connecting with local and national media, writing opinion editorials, developing relationships with university public affairs and government relations leadership, and talking with state legislators and Members of Congress. Each fellow will have five months of coaching with a communications officer to track progress on their plans.

Mayday Fellows have succeeded in televised panel discussions, live radio and television interviews; 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, to name a few. They use the tools they received in training to advance advocacy goals.

The Fellowhip Program is steered by an advisory committee made up of some of the nation's leading experts in the field. Russell Portenoy, M.D., Chairman of the Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City chairs the committee. In 2008, Sandra H. Johnson, J.D., Tenet Chair in Health Law and Ethics, St. Louis University, joins the advisory team.

"We continue to have success developing talented spokespeople eager to engage stakeholders on the topic of pain," Portenoy said.  "We're searching for six more who have the capacity, time and passion to become players in the field, 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 for the fellowship must be accomplished experts 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 committment 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 Russel K. Portenoy, M.D.; James Campbell, M.D., Professor of Neurosurgery and Vice Chairman of the Department at Johns Hopkins Hospital; Scott Fishman, M.D., Professor and Chief, Division of Pain Medicine in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of California, Davis; Kathleen M. Foley, M.D., Chief of the Pain Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Sandra H. Johnson, J.D., Tenet Chair in Health Law and Ethics, Saint Louis University; Patrick John McGrath, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Dalhousie University Medical School; Joan Teno, M.D., M.S., Professor of Community Health and Medicine, and Associate Director of the Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research at the Brown Medical School: and Lonnie Zeltzer, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, and Director of the Pediatric Pain Program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California at Los Angeles.

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