Team

Rev. Amy Arnold, MDiv, is System Manager of Spiritual Care for UC Health. An ordained minister with more than two decades of experience in healthcare chaplaincy, her work has included hospice, palliative care, and blood cancer. She earned her Master of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary with an emphasis in family pastoral care and counseling. Her approach to spiritual care centers on supporting patients and families as they navigate illness, uncertainty, meaning, grief, hope, and survivorship. 

Alan Balch, PhD, is Chief Executive Officer of Patient Advocate Foundation and National Patient Advocate Foundation. He has more than two decades of nonprofit leadership experience spanning healthcare access and affordability, health equity, prevention, early detection, and cancer research. His work focuses on ensuring that the patient perspective is represented in healthcare policy and decision-making and on helping people overcome financial and access barriers to care. 

Meredith Barteck is a Senior Communications Consultant for UC Health. She is an Emmy Award-winning storyteller with a decade of communications and public speaking experience. Using multimedia platforms, Meredith tells the stories of our academic health enterprise with a focus on celebrating employees, patients, research, and innovation. In 2024, Meredith helped the University of Cincinnati Cancer Center internally launch the UC Blood Cancer Healing Center to the 10,000+ employees of UC Health. Previously, Meredith worked as a journalist and anchor in local news across the country, including WLWT News 5 in Cincinnati. In 2025, Meredith and her team at WLWT were awarded an Emmy for their documentary focusing on sex trafficking in Cincinnati. Since transitioning from news to UC Health, which includes the hospital where she was born, she is grateful to give back to the place where her story began through this new age of healthcare communications. Meredith is honored to be with you. She is excited to learn alongside brilliant, compassionate minds and explore ways we can empower the blood cancer community.

Andrew Bazemore, MD, MPH, serves as Senior Vice President of Research and Policy for the American Board of Family Medicine. His work focuses on primary care workforce and training, access to primary health care, health policy, and measures that matter for primary care. He has helped develop national and international research partnerships and leadership programs in family medicine. Dr. Bazemore is also a Hodgkin lymphoma survivor, bringing both professional expertise and lived experience to his keynote perspective. 

Jonathan Bender, MD, is a pediatric oncologist on the Leukemia/Lymphoma Team and Associate Director of the Cardio-Oncology Program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He is also an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati. His clinical focus includes adolescents and young adults with hematologic malignancies, particularly Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. His research examines cardiotoxicity associated with cancer therapies and strategies to identify survivors at greatest risk for late cardiovascular effects. 

Jennifer Bernstein has practiced physical therapy for 12 years at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, specializing in oncology, hematology, and bone marrow transplant care for pediatric, adolescent, and young adult patients. Board-certified in oncology since 2020, she has held program development and leadership roles representing the hospital’s occupational and physical therapists. 

She serves as Specialization Chair for APTA Oncology, a mentor in its Oncology Mentorship Program, and Assistant Item Writing Coordinator for the ABPTS Oncologic Specialty Council. She has also been featured on The OncoPT Podcast and contributed to a MedBridge course on adolescent and young adult oncology. 

Dr. Rynita Bohler is a family physician; her medical education was at Wayne State University before coming to Cincinnati for her Family Medicine Residency with the University of Cincinnati.  She was a trailblazer in her subsequent palliative care fellowship, training also in oncology primary care.  She currently splits her clinical activities between oncology primary care and palliative care. Hailed by her patients for her intelligence, listening skills, and insight, she provides the utmost in care to her patients.

Karen C. Burns, MD, MS, is Co-Director of the Comprehensive Fertility Care and Preservation Program and Co-Clinical Director of the Cancer Survivorship Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. She is also Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati. A pediatric hematologist-oncologist, her clinical work spans cancer survivorship, leukemia and lymphoma, and fertility preservation. She helps patients and families understand and address the potential effects of cancer treatment on future fertility. 

Ellen K. Chang, MD, is a physician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center whose work includes cancer survivorship and the role of physical activity and exercise in supporting health after cancer treatment. Her conference session focuses on practical ways survivors can use movement and exercise to support long-term health, function, and quality of life.

Krista J. Childress, MD, is Co-Director of the Comprehensive Fertility Care and Preservation Program at Cincinnati Children’s and Fellowship Director for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology. Her academic and clinical interests include fertility preservation, complex reproductive tract differences, pelvic malformations, ovarian masses, and minimally invasive surgery. She has worked in multidisciplinary programs serving patients with complex medical needs and brings pediatric and adolescent gynecology expertise to fertility discussions for young people affected by cancer.