Biography

Dr. Tom Strouse is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and the inaugural holder of the Maddie Katz Chair in Palliative Care Research and Education. He is also the Medical Director of Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA and Vice-Chair for Clinical Affairs in the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Strouse has been a faculty member at UCLA since he completed his residency training there in 1991. Early in his career he was director of the UCLA Consultation/Liaison Psychiatry Service and worked closely with the UCLA Liver Transplant Program for more than a decade. He served from 1994-2007 as director of Cancer Pain Management and Supportive Oncology Services at the Outpatient Cancer Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where he developed additional interest and skills in palliative medicine. He has spent his career working with medically ill adults coping with psychiatric and physical aspects of catastrophic illness. Along with his current efforts to promote palliative care clinical research within the UCLA Health System, Dr. Strouse continues to attend on the RRMC-UCLA Palliative Care Consultation Service and is actively engaged with UCLA’s Operation Mend, a program for wounded US servicemen and women. Dr. Strouse is widely recognized for his contributions as a dedicated clinician-teacher, and continues to supervise and mentor residents, fellows, and junior faculty both within and outside psychiatry. In 2003 he received the Robert T. Angarola Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Southern California Cancer Pain Initiative to the individual most allied with improving quality of life for persons with cancer in a given year. He has also been recognized by psychiatry residents with a Top Course Director Award and is repeatedly named in Castle and Connolly’s "America’s Top Doctors for Cancer" and "Southern California Super Doctors" listings. Dr. Strouse is a Fellow of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine and an American Psychiatric Association Distinguished Fellow and member of the American College of Psychiatrists. He is board certified in general psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, and hospice/palliative medicine. In July 2014 assumed the role of Chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine Test Committee responsible for writing the certifying exam for all North American physician candidates for the ABMS subspecialty of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Dr. Strouse has published many peer reviewed papers and book chapters and sits on the editorial boards of a number of important journals. In 2010 he was appointed Associate Editor of the Journal of Supportive Oncology and is now Editor, the Journal of Community and Supportive Oncology; in 2017 he became Associate Editor, the Journal of Palliative Medicine. He lectures throughout the country on topics related to pain, palliative care, psycho-oncology, and psychiatric aspects of medical illness. He was educated at Pomona College and the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

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