Prior to going into private practice, Ken was a Palliative Care Social Worker at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NY, for eight years, where he managed a busy Palliative Care Service on one of Montefiore’s hospital campuses. In this role, Ken counseled hundreds of patients and family members on multiple aspects of coping with serious illness, advised and collaborated with medical teams, conducted often complex and emotionally charged family meetings involving patients, their loved ones, and medical providers, and provided bereavement counseling.

Ken’s teaching experience includes a series of didactics for the Montefiore Palliative Care Fellowship Program and Montefiore Residency Program, including physician communications training based on the VitalTalk curriculum. Ken has been facilitating “Introduction to Clinical Medicine” (ICM) classes of first- and second-year medical students at Montefiore’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine since 2019. This program helps train future physicians in the art of effective and empathic patient communication.

Ken has presented on palliative care topics at national and regional conferences, as well as continuing education workshops through the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service, where he received his master’s degree, and other organizations. Ken is an Advisory Board Member for Educating Social Workers in Palliative and End-of-Life Care (ESPEC): A National Project to Educate Front-line Social Workers in Competency-Based Best Practices.