Susan Hedlund, LCSW, has been a social worker in the health care field for more than thirty years and has extensive experience working with individuals and families facing life threatening illness and loss. She is currently the Director of Patient and Family Services at the Knight Cancer Institute at OHSU Portland Oregon, and is an associate professor at the School of Medicine at Oregon Health & Sciences University, as well as the Graduate School of Social Work at Portland State University. She is a past president of the National Association of Oncology Social Work, and received their Leadership Award in 1999, and the national American Cancer Society Quality of Life Award in 2009.

She was a 2013 recipient of Sojourn’s Award from the Cambia Foundation acknowledging innovations in palliative care.

She publishes on topics related to coping with illness, end of life issues, and loss, most recently in the Oxford University’s Textbook on Social Work in Palliative Care and the Handbook of Oncology Social Work, and is the first editor for the Oxford’s Oncology and Palliative Social Work: Psychosocial Care for People Coping with Cancer (in press). Susan represents the Association of Oncology Social Work on the Commission on Cancer and Chairs the Member Org Steering Committee, as well as the Health Equity Committee.

She works with professional caregivers on issues of promoting resilience and attending to grief, burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral distress. Additionally, she is the mental health provider on Oregon’s Disaster Medical Assistance team and has deployed to a number of disasters to provide emergency medical assistance to people in communities affected by adverse events.