Bridget Sumser

Bridget Sumser is a social worker with the Palliative Care Program for adults. She focuses on the whole person and the family, addressing each patient's social and emotional well-being through counseling, care planning and assistance with navigating the health care system.

Sumser's research and academic work centers on palliative care education. This includes implementing courses and strategies that bring together members of various professions as well as studying how different specialists can best integrate palliative care principles and techniques into their practices. She also investigates how social workers learn palliative care practices.

Sumser earned her master's degree at the New York University Silver School of Social Work, where she also completed a Zelda Foster fellowship in palliative and end-of-life care. She then completed a palliative care social work fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Sumser is a member of the Social Work Hospice and Palliative Care Network, which in 2015 honored her at its annual assembly as an emerging leader in the field.