Brenda Bursch

Dr. Bursch received her PhD from Claremont Graduate School in 1990. She is a Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences and Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where she has been on faculty since 1994. She is the Clinical Director of the Pediatric Psychiatry Consultation Liaison service, overseeing child psychiatry consultations for pediatric medical inpatients. She was awarded the 2005 UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences Teaching Award for Housestaff Teaching.

Dr. Bursch is a medical psychologist with clinical and research interests in pediatric pain, palliative care, somatization, and illness falsification. She has presented lectures at professional conferences within the United States and abroad, and has published numerous scientific articles and book chapters. Dr. Bursch served as an invited member for the International Association for the Study of Pain Ad hoc Subcommittee on Medical School Courses and Curriculum, participating (as first author) in the Development of Core Curriculum on Pediatric Pain Management. Dr. Bursch also participated in the development of national guidelines on both Munchausen by Proxy, and Pediatric Chronic Pain (as Committee Chair). She is currently serving on a multidisciplinary medical school curriculum taskforce to improve the teaching and evaluation of learning for behavioral and social science in medical schools, consistent with the Institute of Medicine recommendations. She has served as Associate Guest Editor for the Journal of Pediatric Psychology, Special Issue on Pediatric Chronic Pain (2006); and as a manuscript reviewer for JAMA, Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, Psychosomatics, Journal of Pediatric Psychology, Journal of Pediatrics, Cognition and Emotion, The American Journal of Psychiatry, Primary Psychiatry, and Child Maltreatment.