Paula K. Rauch, M.D.
Paula K. Rauch, M.D. is a child psychiatrist on the Harvard Medical School faculty and practices at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She founded and directs the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center parenting program known as Parenting At a Challenging Time (PACT). The Marjorie E. Korff PACT program provides free parenting consultations to adult cancer patients who are facing the challenges of parenting along with the challenges of living with cancer. Dr. Rauch is also the chief of the Child Psychiatry Consultation Service to Pediatrics at MGH. She has devoted her professional career to understanding and supporting all the members of a family when one member is seriously ill. Dr. Rauch and her colleague, Anna Muriel, M.D., coauthored the book Raising an Emotionally Healthy Child When a Parent is Sick to help parents address their concerns. Information for parents and professionals is available at their website www.mghpact.org.
"I know how important the health and well-being of children is to parents with breast cancer," she says. "I am committed to helping parents and clinicians better understand normal development and the needs of children when a parent is ill. One third of the women surviving breast cancer have children younger than 19 at home. We need to use every means of getting information out to parents to answer their important questions about how to be most helpful to their children. Breastcancer.org is a wonderful way of providing needed information to parents across the country."