Religion, Spirituality, and Health Scientific Interest Group

For over twenty years, Dr. Berger has been Chief of the Pain and Palliative Care Service at the NIH Clinical Center, where she has clinical, teaching, research, and administrative responsibilities. In addition, Dr. Berger coordinates a highly successful hospice and palliative care fellowship at the NIH Clinical Center. Dr. Berger developed the innovative NIH HEALS instrument which measures psychosocial spiritual healing of individuals with life-threatening and life challenging situations, which she will discuss in her presentation. Dr. Berger has published and lectured extensively in the field of pain and palliative care. Globally, Dr. Berger has been involved with the NCI All-Ireland fatigue consortium, the NCI Croatian Cancer Consortium, and the Mideast Cancer Consortium teaching palliative care in multiple countries.

Dr. Berger earned her undergraduate degree, a B.S. in nursing, from New York University, followed by an M.S.N. in oncology nursing from the University of Pennsylvania. After working as an oncology clinical nurse specialist for several years, she completed her medical training at Medical College of Ohio in Toledo. Dr. Berger then completed an internship and residency at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut and a fellowship in medical oncology and pain/palliative care at Yale University in Connecticut. As an assistant professor in medicine and anesthesiology at Yale, Dr. Berger started a palliative care service. Dr. Berger founded her second successful palliative care service while serving as an assistant professor in medicine and anesthesiology at Cooper Hospital/University Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey. During her four-year tenure there, her service was actively involved in the care of patients and in education and research. She initiated a palliative care course for medical students, residents, and fellows and also used her expertise while chairing the ethics committee. In addition, Dr. Berger served as medical director of Lighthouse Hospice and as director of supportive care services at Cooper Hospital/University Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey. During this time she received two grants as project director of a pain and palliative care scholars program and as project director for a project designed to develop pain/palliative care teams in New Jersey long-term care facilities.

The purpose of the Religion, Spirituality, and Health Scientific Interest Group (RSH-SIG) is to foster communication, promote collaboration, and facilitate the exchange of information, understanding, and resources within the NIH on the intersection of religion, spirituality (R/S) and health, and to the larger research community. The RSH-SIG will promote the understanding of research on the intersection of R/S and health in order to promote Cura Personalis or “care for the entire person”, including in the areas of prevention, treatment, and recovery from addiction and other diseases/health conditions. The RSH-SIG envisions that its work will hasten the NIH mission “to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability

Participants may email their questions for Dr. Berger in advance to RSH-SIG@mail.nih.gov.

For more information go to https://oir.nih.gov/sigs/religion-spirituality-health-scientific-interest-group