Dr. BJ Miller is a longtime hospice and palliative medicine physician and educator. He currently sees patients and families via telehealth through Mettle Health, a company he co-founded with the aim to provide personalized, holistic consultations for any patient or caregiver who needs help navigating the practical, emotional and existential issues that come with serious illness and disability.
BJ’s been on faculty at his alma mater, UCSF, since 2007 and has worked in all settings of care: hospital, clinic, residential facility, and home. Led by his own experiences as a patient, BJ advocates for the roles of our senses, community and presence in designing a better ending. His interests are in working across disciplines to affect broad-based culture change, cultivating a civic model for aging and dying and furthering the message that suffering, illness, and dying are fundamental and intrinsic aspects of life. His career has been dedicated to moving healthcare towards a human centered approach, on a policy as well as a personal level.
BJ has given over 100 talks nationally, and internationally, on the topics of death, dying, palliative care and the intersection of healthcare with design. His 2015 TED Talk: “Not Whether But How” (aka “What Matters Most at the End of Life”), has been viewed over 11 million times and his work has also been the subject of multiple interviews and podcasts, including Oprah Winfrey, PBS, The New York Times, The California Sunday Magazine, GOOP, Krista Tippett, Tim Ferriss and the TED Radio Hour. His book, A Beginner’s Guide to the End, was co-authored with Shoshana Berger and published in 2019.
Following undergraduate studies in art history at Princeton, BJ received his MD from University of California San Francisco as a Regents’ Scholar and completed his internal medicine residency at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, California, where he served as chief resident. He completed a fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine at Harvard Medical School, with clinical duties split between Massachusetts General Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Dr. Miller is a member of the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and has received their Palliative Medicine Community Leadership Award. He serves as a Medical Advisor for the Partnership for Palliative Care, and is the Honorary Medical Chair to the Dream Foundation, a nonprofit organization that serves terminally ill adults and their families.
Rabbi Eric Weiss was born and raised in Los Angeles, Rabbi Weiss has contributed extensively to the fields of Jewish Healing and Spiritual Care. In addition to his rabbinic seminary work, Rabbi Weiss is formally trained in Jewish education, clinical pastoral care, and spiritual direction. He is a spiritual direction supervisor, and is a co-founder of “Grief & Growing™: A Healing Weekend for Individuals and Families” and “Kol Haneshama: A Jewish Hospice/End-of-life Care Volunteer Program. His writing has appeared in many publications. He has served on several boards among them the national board of the Central Conference of American rabbis (CCAR), the Reform movement’s national rabbinic body. Rabbi Weiss has taught extensively throughout the Bay Area, and has been featured in local and national media.
Rabbi Weiss attended the University of California at Santa Cruz where he received a B.A. in Biology and Judaic Studies with honors. He worked in law offices in San Francisco before he entered rabbinic school at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He holds a Masters degree in Hebrew Letters and was ordained in 1989.
He lives with his husband Dan in San Francisco.
Credentials
- B.A. with honors in Biology/Judaic Studies, University of California at Santa Cruz
- Masters degree in Hebrew Letters, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles. Ordained in 1989, New York.
- Spiritual Director and Spiritual Direction Supervisor (trained at Mercy Center, Burlingame, CA)
- Formally training in Jewish Education and Clinical Chaplaincy
- Former Paralegal
Accomplishments & Publications
- Co-founder of “Grief & Growing(TM) : A Healing Weekend for Individuals and Families” and “Kol Haneshama: End- of-Life Care/Hospice Volunteer Program.”
- Former member of the Board of Directors of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the Reform movement’s national rabbinic body. CCAR Rabbinic Mentor (2006-2012).
- Author and co-editor of Mishkan R’fuah: Where Healing Resides (2014) and Mishkan R’fuah: Where Grief Resides (2019), CCAR Press
- Featured in national and local media including monthly host of local CBS’s Mosaic.
- Former Rabbinic Co-chair of Shalom Bayit Rabbinic Advisory Council and recipient of its prize.
- Consultant to Northern California Presbyterian Homes and Services’ Spirituality Initiative.
- Past President of the Board of Directors, Northern California Board of Rabbis
- Contributor to Rosh Hashanah Readings: Inspiration, Information, Contemplation, Edited by Rabbi Dove Peretz Elkins, Jewish Lights, 2006; Yom Kippur Readings: Inspiration, Information, Contemplation, Edited by Rabbi Dove Peretz Elkins, Jewish Lights, 2005; The World is a Narrow Bridge, Edited by Diane Arieff, 2004; Siddur Sha’ar Zahav, 2009; The Mitzvah of Healing, Edited by Hara E. Person, UAHC Press, 2003.