Christopher Kerr, MD, Ph.D., is the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Executive Officer for Hospice & Palliative Care Buffalo. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Chris earned his MD as well as a Ph.D. in Neurobiology. Alongside direct patient care, Chris’s focus is in the areas of leadership and patient advocacy. His passion is palliative care, with the belief that such care should be delivered throughout the continuum of illness. Chris has overseen the integration and expansion of palliative care into hospitals and developed a large home-based program for both adults and children. He has lectured and published on innovative program models designed to better align patient/family services to the complexity of needs inherent to advanced illness.
Dr. Kerr comes from a long line of physicians, of which he is now the fifth generation. He has an undergraduate degree in Psychology, a Doctorate of Medicine, a Ph.D. in Neurobiology, and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Rochester. Dr. Kerr received numerous awards throughout training that recognized his clinical performance and success as an educator and scientist.
Chris’s background in research has evolved from bench science toward the human experience of illness as witnessed from the bedside, specifically patients’ dreams and visions at the end of life. Although medically ignored, these near-universal experiences often provide comfort and meaning and insight into the life led and the death anticipated. To date, the research team at Hospice & Palliative Care Buffalo has published multiple studies on this topic and documented over 1,500 end-of-life events, many of which are videotaped. This work was the subject of Chris’s TEDx Buffalo Talk, which has been viewed approximately 3 million times and has been the subject of reports on BBC and in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Scientific American Mind, Huffington Post, and Psychology Today. It is currently featured on Netflix, called “Surviving Death.” Dr. Kerr’s work is also published by Penguin Random House, in a book titled “Death Is But a Dream,” out now in multiple languages.
Stay tuned for the documentary based on his book “Death Is But a Dream” on PBS WORLD on April 15, 2021. Please check your local listings.
