Stefan J. Friedrichsdorf MD, FAAP

Stefan J. Friedrichsdorf, MD, FAAP is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). He is the medical director of the Center of Pain, Palliative and Integrative Medicine at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in Oakland and San Francisco – one of the most comprehensive programs of its kind in the country.

He was the associate editor of the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management until 2020, the principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) / National Cancer Institute (NCI) multisite study on the creation, implementation, and evaluation of the Pediatric Palliative Care Curriculum “Education in Palliative and End-of-Life Care (EPEC)-Pediatrics”, which so far trained >1,100 clinicians from 86 countries. In 2008 he founded and since then directs the annual Pediatric Pain Master Class, a unique week-long intensive course for interdisciplinary health professionals, which trained more than 600 clinicians from 40 countries.

Dr. Friedrichsdorf has presented more than 750 lectures about pediatric pain medicine, palliative care, and integrative medicine in 30 countries on all six continents and has a track record of research and publications in the field, including more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and contributions to more than 25 books on the subject. He is the president-elect of the Special Interest Group on Pain in Childhood of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP).

Dr. Friedrichsdorf received his MD degree from the Medical University of Lübeck, Germany, completed his pediatric residency at the University of Witten/Herdecke, Germany (Children’s Hospital Datteln), and undertook his fellowship in Pediatric Pain Medicine and Palliative Care at the University of Sydney, Australia (Children's Hospital at Westmead). He is double boarded in Pediatrics in Germany and the United States, a Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatrics, and trained in pediatric clinical hypnosis.