In accordance with the ACCME® Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education, Standard 3, all in control of content must disclose any relevant financial relationships. The following in control of content had no relevant financial relationships to disclose.

Speakers and Bios

Plenary Speakers 

Robert M. Arnold MD is a distinguished Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and in the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law. He was the Past-President of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities as well as the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He has mentored both investigators and educators and helped start VitalTalk, a company whose aim is to ensure that every seriously ill patient has clinicians who can talk about what matters most. He is clinically active in palliative care.

Aparna Gupta DNP, FACHE, CPHQ serves as Vice President of Quality with NHPCO. Aparna is a board-certified adult nurse practitioner, with more than two decades of health care leadership experience spanning quality improvement, health care operations, executive leadership, payer programs, and implementation of CMS / CMMI programs. Aparna has worked with the geriatric and advanced illness population both from a clinician as well as programmatic leadership standpoint. She has also held responsibilities across the continuum of care for areas including bundled payments, provider relations, CMS Hospital Stars, quality measurement, patient safety, infection prevention, patient experience, regulatory accreditation, healthcare risk and compliance management. Aparna has led Transforming Care at the Bedside Teams (TCAB) and served as a master trainer for Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) as well as End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) projects. Aparna holds a national quality improvement certification and Fellow status with the American College of Healthcare Executives. Aparna’s current focus is on enhancing the health equity, quality and measurement capabilities of hospice and palliative care providers across the nation.

Samantha Winemaker, BSc., MD, CCFP(PC), FCFP is a graduate of McMaster University Medical School. She has completed residency training in Family Medicine, and fellowship training in Palliative Medicine. She is an associate clinical professor at McMaster University in the Department of Family Medicine, Division of Palliative Care. She is the co-host of the Waiting Room Revolution podcast, active educator, researcher, author and advocate for palliative care reform.

Concurrent Presenters 

Mark Barash, MD completed medical school in Chicago and went on to complete internal medicine residency and pulmonary and critical care medicine fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He is an attending physician in the ICU at Froedtert Hospital and the Milwaukee VA. He also practices pulmonary medicine in the outpatient setting. His interests focus on the diagnosis and management of patients with scarring conditions of the lung (interstitial lung disease). He is also interested in pulmonary complications of hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) as this group of lung disorders shares many characteristics of interstitial lung disease. Dr. Barash is passionate about medical education and takes part in the mentoring of medical students, residents and fellows. Born in Russia, he speaks the language fluently. Outside of work, he enjoys travelling, good food and being in nature. 

Megan Christenson, MD is a Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellow at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) in Milwaukee. She attended medical school at University of Wisconsin and completed a Masters of Public Heath degree there with a focus on health equity. She completed an Internal Medicine Residency and a Fellowship in Critical Care at MCW.  She is planning a career path that combines work in palliative care and in the intensive care unit (ICU). 

Katie Conrad, OTR/L has been specializing in working with the oncology population for the last 5 years. I am currently the oncology clinical lead for our inpatient units at Froedtert Hospital. We have 94 inpatient beds dedicated to oncology including, newly diagnosed patients, patients undergoing inpatient treatment or clinical trials, general oncology patients admitted with acute medical concerns, and bone marrow/blood stem cell transplant patients.

Melissa Marinelli, MD, is currently completing a fellowship in Hospice and Palliative Medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center. A lifelong Chicagoan, she completed medical school and then residency in Emergency Medicine at Northwestern. Her interest in Palliative Care developed naturally over the course of ten years practicing in a very high acuity Emergency Department. Her post-fellowship plans include practicing inpatient Palliative Care. Her interests include bedside teaching, patient-physician communication, shared-decision making and informed consent.  

Saman Misbah, DO, is Family Medicine trained and worked as a hospitalist in Central Illinois prior to starting Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship at Advocate Aurora System. 

Paula Molosky, PT, DPT, CLT is a physical therapist at Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin. She was worked at Froedtert for the past 10 years, with focus on oncology and vestibular rehab. She received her Doctorate of Physical therapy from Marquette University in 2013. Advanced training incudes certificate in Vestibular Rehab in 2017 and became a certified Lymphedema Therapist in 2018.

Kelly Stone, MSN, RN, A-GPCNP-BC, CWCN-AP obtained her BSN from Alverno, Milwaukee WI in 2010. Worked as staff RN at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee on a post-surgical oncology unit through 2015, while working towards MSN from Marquette University, which was obtained in 2015. Began advanced practice career at Medical College of WI as a NP on the Palliative Care team at Froedtert Hospital from 2015-2021. In spring 2021, transitioned to a position as NP with Wound Care at Froedtert and obtained Advance Practice Wound Care certification in 2022.

Rajiv Varandani, DO is an Emergency Medicine Physician & Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellow at Medical College of Wisconsin. Rajiv went to college at Northwestern University in Chicago (Go Cats!) and worked for Epic as a Project Manager, before going to medical school at Midwestern University in Chicago. Rajiv did his Emergency Medicine training at Detroit Receiving Hospital. His goal as an EM and HPM physician is to work to bridge the gap between the two fields, identifying that many patients often come to the ED multiple times in the last few months of their life, helping to create systems in place to see how clinicians can better meet these patients needs. His interests involved clinical, academic, and administrative challenges. When not in the hospital, Rajiv is enjoying time trying new restaurants with his wife, travelling, or sitting on the couch with his dog Milo.   

The following persons in control of content disclosed the following financial relationships which were reviewed via the MCW conflict of interest mitigation process and addressed.