Core Faculty

Susan D. Block, MD received her AB from Stanford University, her MD from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and completed residencies in both internal medicine and psychiatry at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. She is board-certified in both fields.

For more than 40 years, Dr. Block has been a national leader in the development of the field of palliative medicine, focused particularly on the psychological and psychiatric issues related to serious illness, and has led major innovative educational and quality improvement projects in a variety of areas, is known internationally as an expert in medical education, communication teaching, faculty development, and health system change, and has contributed to research in medical education, palliative care, psychooncology, and health system change . During her career, she led multiple faculty development efforts, including the Project on Death in America Faculty Scholars Program and the Program in Palliative Care Education and Practice, that trained many of the leaders in our field. These faculty and the hundreds of palliative care fellows, residents, and medical students, and other clinicians whom she has trained populate palliative care (and other clinical services) across the US and internationally. Her primary collaborator throughout her career was her husband, Andy Billings, who died in 2015.

She was the Founding Chair of the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a Founding Director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care, a national center of excellence for palliative care education. In addition, she was the founder and Director of the Serious Illness Care Program at Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health care innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard School of Public Health and Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is the author of over 200 publications and has won numerous awards for education, research and leadership in both palliative medicine and psychiatry.

She currently spends her time teaching undergraduates and clinicians at Dana-Farber, seeing a small number of patients, hanging out with family and friends, walking and throwing endless balls for her obsessed golden retriever, reading, learning Italian, and messing around with paints and printmaking.