D. Bresler | B. Cardenas | B. Darnall I K. Davalos | L. Figueroa | G. Erickson | D. Freed | J. Garrett | J. Goodall | 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.
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.
Beth Darnall, PhD is 2012 President of the Pain Society of Oregon and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. She is a pain psychologist in the OHSU Comprehensive Pain Center and also delivers chronic pain classes to patients in the Department of Family Medicine at OHSU. She specializes in empowering women with chronic pain to live their best life possible.
Dr. Darnall’s research includes mirror therapy for phantom pain, predictors for opioid prescription in young women with chronic pain, gender differences in chronic pain, and the mechanisms which link stress to the experience of pain in women. She is particularly interested in learning how to harness the power of the brain to lessen pain and reduce reliance on pain medications. Recently she has also been exploring factors to support the development of gender-specific behavioral treatment for chronic pain. Her research has been supported by the American Pain Society, the International Association for the Study of Pain, the NIH Office for Research on Women’s Health, the N.L.Tartar Trust Foundation, ZRT Laboratories, and the Medical Research Foundation of Oregon. In 2011 she traveled to Vietnam to teach physicians about mirror therapy as a treatment for phantom limb pain.
She received her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder and completed post-doctoral training at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is an advisor to the board to End the Pain Project and serves on the Ethics Committee and the 2012 Scientific Program Committee for the American Pain Society. She is a contributing author to Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Life magazine as well as a regional and national speaker on the topic of chronic pain. More information may be found at http://www.bethdarnall.com
Karin Davalos was appointed in 2003 to the Los Angeles County Commission for Women from the 1st District and has served as its President. She is passionate about helping and providing much needed services to the community and to women and children specifically. Ms. Davalos 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’s Political Caucus. She has been a woman in pain since 1997.
Gary E. Erickson serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Erickson Group founded in 1988. The Erickson Group provides consulting services to the non-profit community in strategic planning, program development, board development, marketing and all aspects of fundraising.
Mr. Erickson has over 30 years experience in working with community-based non-profit organizations. From 1980 to 1984, he served as Executive Vice President for the United Way of Los Angeles where he supervised all planning, public relations and fund-raising activities for the five-region Los Angeles United Way.
The diversity and complexity of the Los Angeles area provided a unique opportunity for Mr. Erickson to develop an understanding of community needs and the success factors required to organize the creation of the California Medical Center Foundation located in downtown Los Angeles. From 1984-1988 while at California Medical Center Foundation, annual gifts increased from under $500,000 in 1984 to an average of over $4.5 million annually between 1985 and 1988.
Liz Figueroa was a 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 serves as Executive Director at For Grace and was instrumental in launching the organization in April 2002 along with his partner Cynthia Toussaint, who has suffered with CRPS (and later many other over-lapping inflammatory and auto-immune conditions) for 29 years. Garrett has been partner and caregiver to Toussaint for 31 years. He has done extensive research about the gender disparity toward women in pain, compiling a comprehensive library on that issue along with specific chronic pain diseases and conditions.
Garrett has assisted Toussaint in all aspects of media relations, advocacy and activism regarding HMO reform, CRPS awareness and the pain gender divide. 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.
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.” In fact, Garrett makes numerous writing contributions, reflecting on his role as a caregiver and partner, in Toussaint’s upcoming memoir, Battle for Grace.
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.
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 serves as Spokesperson at For Grace and has had Complex Regional Pain Syndrome for 29 years. She later developed Fibromylagia, Arthritis and other over-lapping inflammatory and auto-immune conditions. Cynthia founded For Grace in 2002 to raise awareness about CRPS and five years later expanded the organization’s mission to include all women in pain. Before becoming ill, she was an accomplished ballerina and worked professionally as a dancer, actor and singer.
Since 1997, she has been a leading advocate for women in pain, raising awareness through local, national and worldwide media as well as public speaking. Toussaint championed and gave key testimony at two California Senate informational hearings. The first, in May 2001, was dedicated to CRPS awareness. The second took place in February 2004 and explored the chronic under treatment of and gender bias toward women in pain. Both of these efforts were the first of their kind in the nation.
In 2006, Toussaint ran for the California State Assembly to bring attention to her CRPS Education Bill that Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed after she got it to his desk in its first year. Her current “fail first” bill will reform the unethical prescription practice used by the health insurance industry to save money at the cost of pain patients.
Toussaint was the first CRPS sufferer to be featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and on the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio. She is a consultant for ABC News, FOX News and PainPathways, the official magazine of the World Institute of Pain.
She is the author of her upcoming memoir, Battle for Grace, slated for release in 2012. Also, Toussaint is experiencing her first-ever partial CRPS remission largely due to the narrative therapy of writing this book.
Toussaint continues to be a leading advocate for health care reform in California. She was instrumental in changing public opinion which sparked sweeping HMO reform legislation that was signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999. Her focus has now shifted to creating a single-payer, universal health care plan in California that would provide a model for the rest of the country.