Who We Are
We are a team of doctors, nurses, social workers, occupational therapists and chaplains who have also been patients and caregivers. With more than 100 combined years of experience in clinical care, we understand the strengths and the limitations of the healthcare system. We can’t change a diagnosis, but we can change the way you navigate it.
bridget sumser
Bridget became a social worker to help people living with serious illness. Over the course of the last 10 years, she has worked across settings, providing support and companionship to patients, families, community members, and providers. In addition to her clinical work, she is a writer and educator and edited Palliative Care: A Guide for Health Social Workers (Oxford University Press, 2019). Her practice is rooted in a commitment to social justice and understanding illness and caregiving within the context of a unique life. Above all, she looks to promote connection and well-being.
LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker)
chris adrian
Chris is a pediatric palliative care physician and writer who has worked in medicine and fine arts education for over 20 years. Drawing on his experience as pediatrician, oncologist, humanist, chaplain and psychedelic guide, Chris helps patients, parents and families navigate complicated and chronic illness according to their values. His training in Narrative Medicine and somatic psychotherapy help him seek to connect people to their inner healing intelligence and natural creativity as a means of augmenting resilience. He writes about grief and the magic of mortal life in novels, short stories, and non-fiction pieces for medical journals and national magazines.
MD (Pediatrics, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Pediatric Palliative Care)
MDiv (Master of Divinity)
claritza rios
Claritza is a dedicated physician educator with extensive experience in emergency and internal medicine. She understands that everyone should have access to palliative care and she has worked across several health care settings and specialties understanding that illness affects the whole person. In recent years, she has focused her efforts on novel ways of increasing access to palliative care, using technology to bring care to people's homes. Claritza is fluent in Spanish and loves music and watercolor.
MD ( Internal Medicine; Emergency Medicine; Hospice and Palliative Medicine)
heather isaacs
Heather is a board certified chaplain with 15+ years of experience in hospice and palliative care. She is skilled at holding space for others to find their own meaning, direction, and solace through disorienting realities of life, including grief and loss, existential crisis, life-limiting illness and the dying process. Heather works to align with her clients’ deepest values and beliefs, faith traditions or personally-defined worldview and draws on wisdom from sources both sacred and secular to do so. She is grateful to live with her partner and their dog in close proximity to a beloved circle of family and friends.
BCC (Board Certified Chaplain)
tom grothe
Tom is a Nurse Practitioner and psychotherapist who has provided primary, palliative and hospice care for over 40 years. He is a Marriage Family Therapist (inactive) and had a psychotherapy practice focusing on multiple losses and quality of life. Tom worked as a hospice nurse early in the movement and was the Charge Nurse of the world’s first AIDS and cancer in-patient hospice. His symptom-management approach to disease progression empowers patients and families to promote and maximize quality of life in accordance with their values and wishes and make a plan of care that honors those wishes. Tom is the author of “Fallen Sparrows” and lives in San Francisco with his husband and their two rescue cats. He practices yoga daily and sings in a semiprofessional choir.
RN, NP (Masters in Nursing: Adult Nurse Practitioner and Advanced Practice Nurse in Hospice and Palliative Care), MFT (Masters in Psychotherapy-Inactive)
kanako mckee
Kana is a palliative care physician who has cared for seriously ill individuals and their families in the hospital as well as in the outpatient/clinic setting. She is dedicated to helping those with serious illness live with the best quality of life possible, by managing the symptoms and stresses of their illness and helping to identify and access sources of support, meaning, and joy. When not at work, she can be found enjoying the outdoors, savoring a good book, and spending time with her husband, children, and very loyal dog.
MD: Internal Medicine; Hospice & Palliative Medicine
ladybird morgan
Ladybird is a registered nurse, clinical social worker, registered craniosacral therapist practitioner and co-founder of The Humane Prison Hospice Project. She has 20+ years’ experience in hospice and palliative care, addressing trauma, mental health challenges and repercussions of sexual violence. Ladybird guides medical practitioners, families, caregivers and institutions around the world on how to be present to difficult experiences by remembering, embodying and responding from the deepest place of truth. Ladybird also co-facilitates Commonweal’s Cancer Care Help Program: Healing Circles, UCSF’s MERI Center’s Last Acts of Kindness and is a study therapist with a University of Washington study of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy.
RN, MSW (Master of Social Work), RCST
natalie crittendon
Natalie is a psychosocial occupational therapist and has spent nearly a decade providing community-based services. Her work explores skill-building in the face of suffering. This often focuses on developing the skills of receiving love and care, recognizing and expressing wants and needs, identifying as the expert of your own experience, and expanding emotional awareness. She also engages with caregivers as a means to decrease a sense of isolation and promote healthy caregiving. Natalie became interested in palliative care due to her own experience of seeking holistic, patient-centered, communicative care while living with a serious, chronic disease.
OTR/L (Occupational Therapist)
rebecca katz
Rebecca is a nationally recognized expert on the role of food in supporting health and well-being. She has spent 22 years working with patients and caregivers to include the elements of flavor and nutrition in their healing tool kit. She plays with flavor, color and texture to connect nutrition science to the plate, and pioneered a novel and delicious use of food in the treatment of cancer. She is the author of seven cookbooks including the award-winning The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen: Nourishing Big-Flavor Recipes for Cancer Treatment and Beyond. She cooks and paints in Marin County, California.
Nutritionist
Looking for help as soon as possible? Find the earliest available appointment.
Say hi! We’d love to hear from you
info@mettlehealth.com
415.689.3737
PO Box 2081
751 E Blithedale Ave.
Mill Valley, CA 94941