William Breitbart

William Breitbart, M.D. is Chairman, The Jimmie C. Holland Chair in Psychiatric Oncology, and Attending Psychiatrist, Psychiatry Service in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY. He is recipient of the International Psycho-Oncology Society’s (IPOS) 2009 Sutherland Lifetime Achievement Award and 2019 Jimmie Holland Award for lifetime contributions to psychiatric oncology; the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine’s 2011 Hackett Lifetime Achievement Award; the American Psychosocial Oncology Society’s (APOS) 2013 Distinguished Leadership Award; and the American Cancer Society’s 2017 Trish Greene Quality of Life Award. Dr. Breitbart also served as President Emeritus of IPOS. Dr. Breitbart's research efforts focus on psychiatric aspects of cancer and palliative care. His most recent efforts focus on Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy for cancer patients, an “NCI designated Research Tested Intervention” for end of life despair. He has had continuous NIH RO1 funding of investigator initiated research since 1989. Dr. Breitbart was PI of the “Network Project, NCI R25 grant (1992-98) which trained clinicians in cancer pain management and psycho-oncology. He is currently PI of R25 CA190169 which is training a national cohort of cancer care clinicians in Meaning Centered Psychotherapy. He has over 500 peer review publications, chapters and review papers, and 13 textbooks. Dr. Breitbart is Editor-in-Chief, of Cambridge University Press’ international palliative care journal entitled, “Palliative & Supportive Care”.