Stefan Friedrichsdorf, MD, FAAP

Stefan Friedrichsdorf assumed his new role as the medical director of the Center of Pediatric Pain Medicine, Palliative Care and Integrative Medicine at the Benioff Children’s Hospitals in Oakland and San Francisco, University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) in April 2020. He was the sponsor of the Children’s Minnesota system-wide lean value stream “The Comfort Promise: We do everything possible to prevent and treat pain” at Children’s Minnesota to minimize and prevent pain caused by needles for all in- and outpatients, reaching more than 300,000 children annually. The “Comfort Promise” is currently being rolled out in seven additional Canadian and US children’s hospitals.

He is principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) / National Cancer Institute (NCI) multisite study on the creation, implementation and evaluation of the Pediatric Palliative Care Curriculum “Education in Palliative and End-of-Life Care (EPEC)-Pediatrics”, which so far trained 990 clinicians from 66 countries. In 2008 he founded and since then directs the annual Pediatric Pain Master Class, a unique week-long intensive course for interdisciplinary health professionals (trained > 600 clinicians from 40 countries). He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatrics and trained in pediatric hypnosis.

Dr. Friedrichsdorf has presented more than 750 lectures about pediatric pain medicine, palliative care and integrative medicine in 30 countries on all six continents and has a track record of research and publications in the field, including more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and contributions to more than 25 books on the subject. He received the 2016 “Elizabeth Narcessian Award for Outstanding Educational Achievements in the Field of Pain” by the American Pain Society. He is president-elect of the Special Interest Group on Pain in Childhood of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP).