The Chaplain of Oakland: Addressing Biases when Providing Care
Recorded: February 2024
Webinar Moderator:
Kris Kington-Barker | Director of Outreach & Care Provider Programs
Webinar Guest(s):
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Chaplain Betty Clark | MDiv Alameda Health System
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Dr. Jessica Zitter | Alameda Health System and Reel Medicine Media
Recorded: February 2024
Our April webinar is open to all annual and tier members as part of membership benefits.
Webinar Moderator:
Kris Kington-Barker | Director of Outreach & Care Provider Programs
Webinar Guest(s):
Chaplain Betty Clark | MDiv Alameda Health System
Dr. Jessica Zitter | Alameda Health System and Reel Medicine Media
View our conversation with Chaplain Betty Clark, MDiv and Dr. Jessica Zitter profiled in their film The Chaplin of Oakland, currently in its production phase. The film highlights how biases affect healthcare delivery and outcomes.
In hospitals around the United States, patients are suffering due to the stories and judgements assumed by medical professionals about their patients. The film highlights structural inequities and social determinants of health, but also one of individual practitioners who have implicitly accepted biases and stereotypes about the people they are meant to serve.
The Chaplain of Oakland tells the story of the once adversarial, now symbiotic relationship between two charismatic and powerful women: a deeply community-rooted Black chaplain (Betty) and her protege, a fiery Jewish doctor (Jessica). From within the walls of Oakland California’s Highland Hospital, these committed allies work to transform health.
INELDA director of outreach & care provider programs Kris Kington-Barker will moderate the conversation. She will guide both guests and attendees on how we can support new care models to combat biases and integrate doula practices in a better heathcare solution.
Guest Speaker Bios:
Chaplain Betty Clark, MDiv has a master of divinity degree from the Graduate Theological Union, in Berkeley California. She has worked as a hospice chaplain for 16 years and a palliative care chaplain at Alameda Health system for 12 years. She has certificates in palliative care chaplaincy, managing spiritual care and grief counseling.
Chaplain Clark is the founder of the Church Without Walls where she has partnered with Rev. Eugene Williams for 25 years. She is the founder of The East Bay Community End of Life Coalition. Chaplain Clark is the first woman to be the president of The Saint Lukes Society and is currently the president of the board of the ARC of the East Bay.
She loves her work with the patients and staff at Alameda Health System. She believes that we are all wounded healers traveling this path together that leads to wholeness. That no one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. Chaplain Clark feels that she receives as much as she gives.
Dr. Jessica Zitter, MD, MPH practices the unusual combination of critical and palliative care medicine at Highland Hospital, the public hospital in Oakland, California. She uses storytelling to examine the overmedicalization of death in America. Her essays appear in her book, Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life, as well as The New York Times and other publications. Over the past 5 years she has turned to filmmaking to draw audiences into this important conversation.
Her films include the Oscar-nominated Extremis (Netflix) and Caregiver: A Love Story. She is at work on her third film, The Chaplain of Oakland, which examines the crisis of racial healthcare inequities at the end of life. In 2021, she founded a nonprofit organization, Reel Medicine Media, to maximize impact with her films through organizational partnerships, curriculum generation, and public speaking.
Dr. Zitter attended Stanford University and Case Western Reserve University Medical School and earned her Masters in Public Health from University of California, Berkeley. Her medical training includes an Internal Medicine residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a fellowship in Pulmonary/Critical Care at the University of California, San Francisco. She also is co-founder of Vital Decisions, a telephone-based counseling service for patients with life-limiting illness.
Tier 2 & 3 members can view this webinar at no cost as part of the INELDA membership benefits.
Tier 1 & Non-members can purchase access to this webinar live for $15 to and will be able to view the recording following the event.
The recording of this webinar is available to Tier 2 & 3 members as part of their INELDA membership benefits. Tier 1 and Non-members who purchased access to the webinar may also view the recording.
To view a recording of this webinar [CLICK HERE]
