Pain Collaborative Hybrid Meeting

Rep. Chu currently serves on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over legislation pertaining to taxes, revenues, Social Security, and Medicare. In that Committee, Rep. Chu is a member of the Subcommittees on Health, giving her oversight over healthcare reform and crucial safety net programs, Worker and Family Support, and Oversight.

She also serves on the House Small Business Committee, which has oversight of the Small Business Administration, as well as the House Budget Committee.

Chu was first elected to the Board of Education for Garvey School District in 1985. From there, she was elected to the Monterey Park City Council, where she served as Mayor three times. She then was elected to the State Assembly and then California’s elected tax board, known as the State Board of Equalization. In 2009, she became the first Chinese American woman elected to Congress in history.

Wendy A. Coduti, Ph.D is a Regional Director for Health, Productivity, Analytics and Consulting (HPAC) at Prudential Financial, Inc. Wendy works with employers in maximizing productivity and minimizing absence through the development of absence and disability management programs. Wendy has a master’s degree in Labor Relations/Human Resource Management and a doctorate in Rehabilitation Counseling Education.

Prior to joining Prudential in the fall of 2022, Wendy was an associate professor at Penn State University where her teaching and research revolved around absence management, mental health in the workplace and aging workers. Before entering academia, Wendy spent the first half of her career managing leaves of absence for employers, working in human resource benefits, and owning her own private vocational rehabilitation consulting practice.

Previously, Dr. Gaudet was with Duke University Health System, where she served as Executive Director of Duke Integrative Medicine until 2010. Under her leadership, Duke Integrative Medicine created a state-of-the-art healthcare facility dedicated to the transformation of medicine through the exploration, demonstration, and research of new models of patient-centered care.

Prior to her work at Duke, Dr. Gaudet was the founding Executive Director of the University of Arizona Program in Integrative Medicine, leading the design of the country’s first comprehensive curriculum in this new field and launching the distant learning fellowship. In addition, Dr. Gaudet co-founded the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health.

She is a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist and has received recognition for her work, including being named one of the “Top 25 Women in Healthcare” by Modern Healthcare and featured as a Game Changer in Fortune Magazine. She has been honored with the Bravewell Leadership Award, the Exemplary Service Award for her work with Veterans, and the Visionary Award from the Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine.

Paula Gardiner, M.D., M.P.H., is the director of Primary Care Implementation Research at Center for Mindfulness and Compassion at Cambridge Health Alliance. She is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at University Massachusetts Chan Medical School. She directs the group medical visit program in the Center for Integrated Primary Care. Dr. Gardiner, with funding from NIH and a PCORI grant, focuses her research on medical group visits, mindfulness, technology, and health disparities and increasing access in low income patients. Current research is focused on the adaptive role of Medical Group Visits combining mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and a medical group visit to support health behavior change and reducing pain and stress. Dr. Gardiner is leading the implementation of this medical group visit model nationally and provides training on medical group visits around the United States. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers on chronic pain, health disparities, technology, dietary supplements, stress, and integrative medicine in underserved patients.

Christine Goertz, D.C., Ph.D. is a Professor in Musculoskeletal Research at the Duke Clinical Research Institute and Director of System Development and Coordination for Spine Health in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University. She is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Spine Institute for Quality and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health at the University of Iowa.

Dr. Goertz’s 25-year research career has focused on working with multi-disciplinary teams to design and implement clinical and health services research studies designed to increase knowledge regarding the effectiveness and cost of complementary and integrative healthcare delivery. She has received nearly $32M in federal funding and has authored or co-authored nearly 100 peer-reviewed papers. Dr. Goertz currently serves on the Board of Governors for the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), recently appointed in September 2019 as Chairperson of the PCORI Board of Governors by the Comptroller General of the United States.

Since 2018, Shoshana has built a community of over 25,000 active members across multiple social media platforms, and in 2021 launched a new initiative called, Empowering Patient Voices. She collaborates with various advocacy organizations and leaders who advocate for people with migraine and chronic pain, and writes for Migraine.com. Shoshana has been a migraine advocate spokesperson for several organizations and a regular conference speaker, frequently on the topic of patient centricity, including for the Association of Migraine Disorders, Healthy Women, the American Journal of Managed Care, CHAMP, DIA Global, Pharma and Patient USA, Digital Pharma East, and the Pain Therapeutics Summit. Shoshana consults with various pharmaceutical and medical device companies as a patient advisor.

Kate Nicholson, J.D. is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Pain Advocacy Center, She is a civil rights attorney, writer, speaker and advocate on the treatment of pain and addiction in the context of the opioid crisis. Nicholson is a former attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, and graduate of Harvard Law School. She is widely published on the challenges of pain and addiction, including the American Journal of Law and Medicine, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times.

Kate developed intractable pain after a surgical mishap left her unable to sit or stand and severely limited in walking for many years. She gave the TEDx talk, What We Lose When We Undertreat Pain, and speaks widely at universities and conferences and to medical groups.

Kate has published academic and opinion pieces related to pain in the American Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics, the Washington Post, the LA Times, Washington Monthly, STAT, and others, and is frequently interviewed in the press.

Martha Lawrence has a Master’s of Business Administration from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor’s of Science in Kinesiology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ms. Lawrence serves as a board member for AccendoWave, Sequoia Realty Advisors and American Healthcare Finance.

A chiropractor by training, Dr. John Scaringe, DC, EdD, is an educator, author, advocate for healthcare transformation, and President of Southern California University of Health Sciences (SCU), one of the nation’s first and only integrative, whole health universities.

Dr. Scaringe began his career on the faculty of the Los Angeles College of Chiropractic (LACC), where he later held a range of roles including Director of the University’s Health Center, Dean of Clinical Education, and Vice President of Academic Affairs. In 2010, he was named President of the institution (now known as Southern California University of Health Sciences) and went on to lead an historic institutional transformation—diversifying programs, more than doubling enrollment, and implementing a groundbreaking whole health approach to healthcare education.

An advocate for the advancement of both healthcare and education, Dr. Scaringe has provided leadership to countless organizations, including serving as a Board Member of the Academic Collaborative for Integrative Health (ACIH), President of the American Chiropractic Board of Sports Physicians, Vice Chair of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies, and Commissioner for the Northwest Commission for Colleges and Universities (NWCCU), just to name a few.

His contributions to research and literature are also wide-ranging, having served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Sports Chiropractic and Rehabilitation, on the editorial advisory board of Manual Therapy, and publishing numerous articles in a range of scholarly journals and textbooks.

Dr. Scaringe earned an EdD in Educational Leadership from California State University, Long Beach, a Master’s of Science in Kinesiology from California State University, Fullerton, and a Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Northeast College of Health Sciences (formally New York Chiropractic College). He is married with two daughters.

Adam Seidner, M.D., M.P.H., is the Chief Medical Officer for The Hartford insurance, leading strategy and policy across all lines of business with a particular focus on workers’ compensation and disability management. Prior to his current role, Dr. Seidner was Global Medical Director for Travelers Insurance.

He earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from SUNY Health Science Center, a Master’s degree in public health from the University of Connecticut, and an A.B. in Anthropology from Hamilton College. He is also board-certified by the American Board of Preventative Medicine: Occupational and Environmental Medicine and American Board of Family Medicine.

Vanila Singh, M.D. is an American physician, educator, policy maker, and patient advocate dedicated to public health and currently tackling one of the nation’s most widespread, expensive, and devastating epidemics of our time: the opioid and greater drug epidemic. She is an expert in treating and understanding the underlying mechanisms of complex acute and chronic pain. In 2017, Dr. Singh was appointed by the White House administration to serve as the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH). She was later concurrently appointed by the Assistant Secretary for Health as the Acting Regional Director for Region 9 (CA, NV, AZ, HI, and the Pacific Islands) and served dual leadership roles through her HHS tenure. Dr. Singh is double-board certified Stanford physician in both anesthesiology and pain medicine with a background in molecular and cell biology, and economics. She is widely published in various news journals including Time Magazine, Modern Healthcare, and Medscape. Dr. Singh has also received awards for Visionary Leadership Award, Lifetime Achievement award, and Presidential Commendation Award from various organizations.

Few people with a cause walk the talk as boldly and graciously as Christine Von Raesfeld. Christine is a pillar of patient advocacy and allyship in the rare and chronic disease community. Through the lens of her lived experiences in healthcare, she has become a champion for patient voices, diversity and inclusion in clinical research, and equitable patient-sponsor partnerships.

Christine has brought her unique perspective and honed expertise to countless roles as a featured speaker for numerous conferences on topics ranging from clinical trial recruitment to data & digital rights, from a true patient perspective. She serves as an e-patient scholar with Stanford MedicineX and a Committee Member with the Partnership for Quality Measures (CMS) among other roles. Wherever possible, Christine generates momentum toward progress along her patient advocacy jouney and has become a thought leader worldwide, stimulating dialog on a range of topics relevant to patients, clinicians, and industry.

As a patient advisor, Christine has assisted several initiatives including the Stanford “Humanwide” Precision Medicine Program and the NIH All of Us Research Program and serves as a board member/advisor to multiple organizations and startups. She helped to co-author the patient-led AI Rights Initiative with the Light Collective and focuses on data/digital rights and personalized/precision medicine. For her many contributions to her field, she has been named one of the top 100 Women of Influence by Silicon Valley Business Journal, Silicon Valley Community Hero, a member of the 2021 HIMSS Future50, and one of Medika Life’s 50 most influential voices in healthcare.