William S. Breitbart, MD

I am a board-certified psychiatrist whose expertise focuses on the psychiatric aspects of pain, symptom control, and palliative care in cancer patients. I have been Chief of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center since 1996 and the department’s vice chair since 2009. I provide individual interventions to patients, couples, and family members. In addition, I am the psychiatric liaison to the Hepatobiliary Disease Management Team and the Pain and Palliative Care Service. I am also a member of the Brain Tumor Center faculty.

I also lead the psychotherapy laboratory, which conducts novel counseling interventions for cancer patients at all stages of disease and cancer types as well as couples and families. My research interests have included fatigue related to cancer and AIDS; depression in terminally ill AIDS and cancer patients; meaning-centered psychotherapy for advanced cancer patients; and delirium research.

I helped to establish the American Psycho-Oncology Society (APOS), I am the President of the International Psycho-Oncology Society (IPOS), and I am the past president of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine, all organizations of specialists in my field. In addition, I am on the board of directors of many other medical societies. I am the recipient of the 2009 Willet F. Whitmore Award for Clinical Excellence from Memorial Sloan-Kettering, and the 2009 Arthur Sutherland Award for Lifetime Achievement in the field of psycho-oncology from IPOS. Additionally, I am a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and was a faculty scholar of the Project on Death in America. I am editor-in-chief of the international palliative care journal entitled Palliative and Supportive Care.