Dr. Kathleen M. Foley
Dr. Kathleen M. Foley is an Attending Neurologist in the Pain and Palliative Care Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) New York City.She is Porfessor of Neurology, Neuroscience and Clinical Pharmacology at Weil Medical College of Cornell University, and holdsteh Chair of the Societa of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Pain Research.
In 1981, Dr. Foley was appointed chief of the newly formed Pain Service within Department of Neurologyat Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. It was the first designated pain serviec in a cancer center in the United States. Dr. Foley was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the Nationa Academy of Sciencefor her national and international efforts in the treatment of patients of cancer pain. She is currently director of the Open Society Institute's Pallaitiev Care Initiative including the Projest on Death in America, the Eastern European Pallaitive Care Initiative and the Palliative Care Initiative in South Africa. These projects focus on transforming the culture of experience of death and dying through funding initiatives in education, research, scholarships, and clinical care. Dr. Foley is also a member of the OSI Network Public Health SubBoard.
Dr. Foley has focused her career on the assessment and treatment of patients with cancer pain.She has defined the epidemiology, classifiead the common causes and defined the common pain syndromes that occur in this patient population. With her colleagues, she has developed scientific guidelines for the treatment of cancer pain with analgesic drug therapy through clinical pharmacological studies of opioid drugs.
Dr. Foley is a past President of American Pain Society and a past member of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Neurology and the International Association of the Study of Pain. She has received numerous awards and honors including the Distinguished Service Award from American Cancer Society, the David Karnovsky Award from American Society of clinical Oncology, and the Frank Neller award of the American Academy of Neurology.
As an expert
consultant to the World Health Organization Cancer and Palliative
Care Unit and as past director of a WHO Collaborating Center at
Memorial Sloan Ketterring Cancer Center, Dr. Foley chaired three
expert committees resulting in eteh publication of three WHO
monographs: Cancer Pain Relief (1986). Cancer Pain Relief
and Palliative Care (1990) and Cancer Pain andPalliative Care
in Children (1996).