D. Bresler | E. Carden | B. Cardenas | K. Davalos | L. Figueroa | D. Freed | J. Garrett | J. Goodall | D. Gravert | D. Hoffmann | S. Richeimer | C. Toussaint
David Bresler, PhD, LAc is the President and Co-Founder, Academy for Guided Imagery, and Executive Director of The Bresler Center in Los Angeles. He is the former Founder and Executive Director of the UCLA Pain Control Unit and Associate Clinical Professor, UCLA School of Medicine; Former White House Commissioner on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy; Author of Free Yourself From Pain, Break Your Smoking Habit With Guided Imagery, and numerous other books, workbooks, articles, and scientific publications.
Edward Carden, MD, FRCP is the Director of Southern California Academic Pain Management, Director of Southern California Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (CRPS) Institute, and Clinical Professor at the University of Southern California. He spent three years in Cambridge University’s Trinity College and gained an honors degree in Natural Sciences M.A., then proceeded on to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London where he finished his medical training. In 1964 he was awarded an M.B. BChir, which is the British equivalent of an M.D.
In 1974, Dr. Carden accepted a position as an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, in addition to becoming the Chief of Anesthesia at the Wadsworth Veterans Hospital. In 1977 he became a full-time practicing anesthesiologist with a side specialty of pain management, while maintaining a Clinical Associate Professor status at UCLA. Starting in 1990, further active training was carried out to perfect his techniques in the more advanced methods of invasive pain management and medical treatment of the more esoteric pain management problems. By 1998, his practice became full-time pain management.
Dr. Carden has 53 publications, of which he is the senior author on most, and is an extensive lecturer. He has manufactured six anesthetic devices and is actively pursuing a career of invasive pain management with a specialty in Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (CRPS I). Currently, he is the head of pain management at the Diagnostic and Interventional Spinal Care center in Marina Del Rey, California.
Bonnie Cardenas received her degree in Physical Therapy from CSUN in 1974. After 10 years of hospital based practice, Bonnie opened a private practice specializing in the treatment of orthopedic problems. Since then she has attained her certification as a Feldenkrais practitioner. She currently holds private and group classes. She has also developed a specialty in the treatment of pelvic muscle function and serves as a consultant to the UCLA Pelvic Pain Clinic. Bonnie is trained in the Isemhagen method for performing Functional Capacity Evaluations (FCEs), on-sight job analysis and pre-work screening. She is also trained in the assessment and treatment of TMJ disorders.
Karin Davalos, appointed in 2003 to the Los Angeles County Commission for Women from the 1st District, currently serving as its President, has been passionate about helping and providing much needed services to the community and to women and children specifically. She has served as President of the Comision Femenil de Los Angeles, as a Board Member of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles and the Fundraising Vice President of the National Women’ Political Caucus. Ms. Davalos has been a woman in pain since 1997.
Liz Figueroa, is a former California State Senator who as a Democrat represented the 10th District until she termed out in November 2006. Prior to being a Senator, Liz served two terms in the California State Assembly. She was the first Northern California Latina to be elected to the Legislature.
Senator Figueroa served on a variety of committees and was Chair of the Senate Committee on Business and Professions, the Joint Legislative Sunset Review Committee, the Senate Select Committee on International Trade Policy and State Legislation and the Senate Select Committee on Technological Crime and the Consumer. In her first year with the Assembly, Figueroa delivered nine bills to the Governor’s desk, all of which were signed into law—the highest percentage of any freshman legislator. She has been a leader in the high profile fight to reform managed care in California. Figeroa has been named Legislator of the Year by numerous organizations, including the March of Dimes, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Association of Retarded Citizens, Leadership California and the California National Organization for Women.
Dick Freed has an extensive background in magazine publishing and film producing. In the 1970s, he was associate producer of two feature films starring Zero Mostel: The Great Bank Robbery for Warner Brothers and Mastermind for ABC Films. He also produced a four-hour mini-series called The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald for ABC Television. In the 1990s, his company produced two movies of the week for Lifetime Television, both of which won major awards and were the highest-rated films in Lifetime’s history. From 1953 to 1965, Freed was editor and co-owner of Media Agencies Clients, an advertising trade journal that is now called Ad Week. He then co-founded Freed Crown Lee Publishing, which operated five business publications covering the advertising, automotive, travel, motorcycle and bicycle industries. That company was founded in 1966 and Freed remained active in it until its sale in 1989.
John Garrett was instrumental in launching For Grace in April 2002 along with his partner Cynthia Toussaint, who has suffered with RSD for 26 years. Garrett has been partner and caregiver to Toussaint for 28 years. He has done extensive research on RSD, compiling a comprehensive library on the disease and on chronic pain. Garrett has assisted Toussaint in all aspects of media relations, advocacy and activism regarding HMO reform and RSD awareness. His work focuses on speech presentation, grantwriting, research, media outreach and the development of marketing strategies. Garrett has also consulted with the Chief Medical Advisor of the Department of Managed Health Care regarding the lack of effective pain management practices in the HMO industry and he continues to work with the organization to promote change. Garrett currently serves as Executive Director of For Grace.
Commenting on her long-term partnership with Garrett, Toussaint said, “My story as a woman in pain is also a love story because John’s support has been total and unwavering. Without his loving presence in my life, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
Jane Goodall PhD, DBE, Founder – the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace began her landmark study of chimpanzees in Tanzania in June 1960, under the mentorship of anthropologist and paleontologist Dr. Louis Leakey. Her work at Gombe Stream would become the foundation of future primatological research and redefine the relationship between humans and animals.
In 1977, Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), which continues the Gombe research and is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. The Institute is widely recognized for establishing innovative, community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa, and the Roots & Shoots education program which has more than 8,000 groups in nearly 100 countries.
Dr. Goodall travels an average 300 days per year, speaking about the threats facing chimpanzees, other environmental crises, and her reasons for hope that humankind will solve the problems it has imposed on our planet. She continually urges her audiences to recognize their personal responsibility and ability to effect change through consumer action, lifestyle change and activism.
In April 2002, Secretary-General Kofi Annan named Dr. Goodall a United Nations “Messenger of Peace.” In 2004, in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, Dr. Goodall was invested as a Dame of the British Empire, the female equivalent of knighthood.
She has been the subject of numerous television documentaries and is featured in the large-screen format film, Jane Goodall’s Wild Chimpanzees (2002). In 2004 she was featured in two Discovery Channel Animal Planet specials—Jane Goodall’s Return to Gombe and Jane Goodall’s State of the Great Ape.
Debra Gravert has worked for the California Legislature for 23 years. She currently serves as Chief of Staff for Assemblymember Jared Huffman. Debra manages and administers Assemblymember Huffman’s Sacramento and Marin offices and serves as his principal staff advisor on legislative issues.
Debra formerly worked for Assemblymember Fran Pavley, advising her on issues relating to the environment, children’s safety, consumer protection, education, and health care. Prior to that, she served as principal consultant to Senator Patrick Johnston advising him on issues relating to transportation and public safety. Debra also served as Chief of Staff to Assemblymembers Richard Floyd and Joe Baca, working on policy issues in the areas of labor and employment, utilities, education and transportation. In her tenure with Assemblymember Pavley, Debra was instrumental in ensuring the passage of AB 1493, which required California to establish strict standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.
Debra’s mother was diagnosed with RSD in 2001 - and Debra was instrumental in helping For Grace spearhead our California RSD Education bill that got to Gov. Schwarzengger’s desk in 2005.
Diane E. Hoffmann, JD, MS, is Professor of Law, Associate Dean of Academic Programs, and Director of the Law & Health Care Program at the University of Maryland School of Law. She received her law degree from Harvard Law School and her Master’s degree from Harvard School of Public Health. She has taught Torts, Law and Medicine, Health Care Law, Legal Problems of the Elderly, Critical Issues in Health Care, Research with Human Subjects, and Health Care for the Poor.
Her research interests include issues at the intersection of law, health care, ethics and public policy such as advance directives, obstacles to adequate pain treatment, end-of-life care and termination of life support, genetics, regulation of human subject research, and of managed care. She has served as a member of a number of ethics committees including those at University of Maryland Medical Systems, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, and the VA Medical Center in Baltimore. She has also served as a member of the IRB at the University of Maryland. From June 1994 to May 1995, while on leave from the law school, she served as the Acting Staff Director of the Senate Subcommittee on Aging and was responsible for all health care and aging legislation for U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski.
From 1997 to 2004, she was a Mayday Scholar focusing much of her research and scholarship on legal and financial obstacles to the management of pain. She has published several articles in this area: “The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias Against Women in the Treatment of Pain,” “Achieving the Right Balance in Oversight of Physician Opioid Prescribing for Pain: The Role of State Medical Boards,” “Pain Management and Palliative Care in the Era of Managed Care: Issues for Health Insurers,” and “Dying in America: Policies that Deter Adequate End of Life Care in Nursing Homes.” Her current research includes a study of the use of health related genetic tests in the courtroom and an article on the criminal prosecution of physicians for prescription of opiods.
Steven Richeimer, MD, is the Chief of the Division of Pain Medicine and the Director of the Palliative Medicine CARE Team at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.
Dr. Richeimer received a Bachelor’s Degree with Distinction from Stanford University, then moved 40 miles north to attend the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. Since receiving his medical degree in 1982, Dr. Richeimer went on to UCLA to complete residency training in psychiatry and in anesthesiology—and became board certified in both fields. He then traveled to Boston for Pain Fellowship training at Harvard University’s Beth Israel Hospital.
In 1995, Dr. Richeimer accepted a position as the Director of Pain Medicine at the University of California, Davis. In 1998, he returned to his hometown of Los Angeles, and in 2001 was recruited to be Chief of the Division of Pain Medicine and an Associate Professor at the University of Southern California. At USC, Dr. Richeimer launched the Palliative Medicine CARE Team to help relieve the suffering of patients at the USC/Norris Cancer Center. He also started the USC Pain Fellowship Training Program.
Dr. Richeimer has co-authored three books and 37 articles, abstracts and chapters, and is webmaster of helpforpain.com. He has focused his clinical practice on cancer pain and neuropathic pain.
Cynthia Toussaint has had Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (aka, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, CRPS) for 26 years and founded For Grace in 2002, originally to raise awareness about the disease. She later developed fibromyalgia as an over-lapping condition. Before becoming ill, she was an accomplished ballerina and worked professionally as a dancer, actor and singer.
Since 1997, she has been a leading RSD advocate who raises awareness through local, national and worldwide media as well as public speaking. Toussaint championed and gave key testimony at two California Senate hearings. The first in May 2001 was dedicated to RSD awareness. The second in February 2004 explored the chronic under treatment of and gender bias toward women in pain (the impetus behind For Grace’s expanded mission that embraces this issue.) Both of these efforts were the first of their kind in the nation. She was the first RSD sufferer to be featured in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, and on Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio, and is a consultant for ABC News.
Also, Toussaint continues to be a leading advocate for health care reform in California. She was instrumental in changing public opinion which led to sweeping HMO reform legislation that was signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999. Her focus has now shifted to bringing a single-payer, universal health care plan to all in California which will provide a model for the rest of the country.