MARCH 5, 2007

For More Information, contact:

Carol Schadelbauer or Karen Hanna at (301) 652-1558

MAYDAY PAIN & SOCIETY FELLOWSHIP: CALL FOR APPLICATIONS FOR 2007

Six New Fellows to Join the Community of Experts Advocating

for the Pain Management Field

Apply online at http://painandhealth.org/maydayfellows/application.html

WASHINGTON D.C. (March 5, 2007) 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 2007 Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship; A Media & Policy Fellows Initiative. This is the fourth 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 communications 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 22-25, 2007), 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.

"I believe there is a glaring need for members of the pain management community of all disciplines to become skilled in communicating our messages," said Steve Passik, Ph.D., Director of the Symptom Management and Psychopharmacology Laboratory Program at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and a 2006-07 Mayday Fellow. "By becoming active in the public discussion of pain issues we can exert some control over how pain management is portrayed and perceived. The Mayday Fellowship was not only eye-opening and enjoyable, but the skills I acquired and contacts I made immediately enabled me to be a more effective advocate and to maximize the power of my interactions with media."

The Fellowship 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 2007, past Mayday Fellow 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., joins the Fellowship advisory committee.

"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-medicinal 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 the pain field, 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:

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 Fundís 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.

"http://maydayfellows.org/"