Meaghann Weaver, MD, MPH, FAAP, currently serves as division chief, Pediatric Palliative Care at the Children’s Hospital and Medical Center and the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. She graduated from Creighton University Summa Cum Laude with a major in theology
and a co-major in African studies. Meaghann thought she would become a linguistic anthropologist but instead entered medicine, which she describes as “a form of humanistic anthropology as we gather narratives and help families make meaning even during times of illness”.
After attending medical school at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, she completed her pediatric residency in Virginia and then completed a pediatric oncology/hematology fellowship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital with additional research training at DC Children’s National Health Systems. Dr. Weaver received her public health degree (global health epidemiology) from George Washington University. She then completed palliative care and hospice fellowships at the National Institutes of Health. Her academic interests include health equity, family theory and decisional-paradigms as impacts goals of care, complex symptom management, spirituality, anticipatory grief and bereavement, and implementation science.
Dr. Weaver is deeply committed to team science and interdisciplinary team care, citing the ways in which her palliative care social work, chaplain, nursing, massage therapy, and Healing Touch teammates daily inspire her continued work in the field. Dr. Weaver emphasizes that her team’s ability to reach across a rural state with creative programmatic interventions for children with complex, chronic, and critical illness is a testimony to the values and virtues of her teammates. Dr Weaver’s pediatric palliative care team, the Hand in Hand team, received the Circle of Life Citation of Honor in 2019 from the American Hospital Association for their caring work with children with life-limiting diagnoses and their families.
Dr Weaver served as Co-Chair of the Society of International Pediatric Oncology Palliative Care Working Group, which allowed her to foster a global network of shared palliative efforts and energies specifically focused on partnerships with teams in low- and middle-income settings. Dr Weaver shares that the kindness, passion, and collaborations of her palliative partners and mentors across time zones inspires and energizes her ongoing work in the field.