Spring 2009: Lori S. Wiener, PhD
Thursday, April 23, 2009 at the Buffalo Niagara Marriott
Lecture from 2 to 4 p.m. – Reception from 4 to 5:30 p.m.
Children with HIV/AIDS over the Last Three Decades: What We Can Learn by Bridging Clinical Experience with Research Methodology
This presentation will take the audience through the emergence of the pediatric HIV/AIDS epidemic beginning in the early 1980’s through the current challenges associated with survival and transition to adult care. Diagnosis, child and parental adjustment, adherence, advance care planning, bereavement, child and parental survival and professional challenges will be presented via the findings of psychosocial research data and clinical interviews. Material produced during therapeutic sessions will be used to illustrate the changing epidemic. Videotapes illustrating longitudinal developmental considerations will be shared.
Biographical Sketch
Lori Wiener is the coordinator of the pediatric psychosocial research program in the Pediatric Oncology Branch of the National Cancer Institute.
She has dedicated her career to the field of oncology and pediatric HIV/AIDS. Originally from New York, Wiener received her PhD in Social Work from New York University and held a private practice while working at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She joined the Pediatric Oncology Branch in 1986 to help incorporate pediatric HIV studies into the existing pediatric oncology program and her clinical research has focused on parental needs and coping, children's distress, sibling issues, mental health outcomes, diagnosis disclosure, transition from adolescence and young adulthood, loss and bereavement and interventions designed to meet the needs of critically ill children and their families.
She also brings with her a wealth of information about the inner worlds of medically challenged children, some of which have been published in a book entitled Be A Friend (Albert Whitman and Company, 1994), An Alphabet about Families Living with HIV/AIDS, workbooks for children living with life threatening diseases and a therapeutic board game called ShopTalk. She has just completed editing a reference book entitled Quick Reference for Pediatric Oncology Clinicians: The Psychiatric and Psychological Dimensions of Pediatric Cancer Symptom Management.