Featured Speakers

Jessica Zitter, MD, MPH, is a physician, writer, and documentary filmmaker whose work explores the human side of medicine. She is the founder of Reel Medicine Media and the featured physician in the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated Netflix film Extremis (2016). She went on to direct Caregiver: A Love Story (2020) and The Chaplain & The Doctor (2025). Her book, Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life (2017), traces her journey from aggressive interventionist to patient-centered care advocate. Dr. Zitter’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and JAMA, and she has been featured on NPR’s Fresh Air and CBS Sunday Morning. She practices both critical and palliative care in Oakland, California.

Betty Clark, MDiv, is a hospice chaplain with 16 years of service and a palliative care chaplain at Alameda Health System for 12 years. She holds certificates in palliative care chaplaincy, spiritual care management, and grief counseling. She founded both the Church Without Walls, with Rev. Eugene Williams, and the East Bay Community End of Life Coalition. Chaplain Clark was the first woman to lead the Saint Luke’s Society and now serves as board president of the ARC of the East Bay. Guided by the belief that “no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care,” she views her work as a reciprocal path of healing.

Heidi Mason, DNP, MSN, BSN, is an acute care nurse practitioner in head and neck oncology at the University of Michigan’s Rogel Cancer Center and an assistant professor in the university’s graduate school of nursing. A researcher and national VitalTalk faculty member, Dr. Mason specializes in palliative care and symptom management. She delivers the VitalTalk curriculum to acute care nurse practitioner students and bedside nurses, helping them build confidence in difficult conversations and in setting goals of care. She also created a palliative care lecture series to expand primary palliative care for patients with cancer. Dr. Mason earned a BSN from Michigan State University, an MSN from Wayne State University, and a DNP from Madonna University.

Cliff Devries is the diving coach at Rochester Institute of Technology and head coach of Upstate New York Diving. After surgery to remove a brain tumor at age 21 left him partially paralyzed, he rebuilt his life through coaching. He has trained athletes from beginners to international competitors and led teams to multiple AAU national championships. Lauded for his technical expertise, motivational leadership, and resilience, his one-armed birthday dive in 2019 from the 3-meter board was viewed more than 325 million times. ESPN told his story in the Emmy-nominated E:60 short film Cliff Diving (2021).