Texas Talks Board Executive Committee Members

We are passionate about improving care for patients facing advancing, serious illnesses and frailty due to aging. Along with providing care for patients, we focus on remembering that we are just like you….we are also patients and the loved ones supporting patients.

Kendra Belfi, MD, FACP, CMD-R

Kendra practiced internal medicine and geriatrics in Fort Worth, Texas for nearly 35 years before retiring in 2011.  She attended Rice University and UT Southwestern Medical School.  She completed an internal medicine residency at the VA  and Parkland Hospitals in Dallas.  She developed an interest in treating older patients and became certified in Geriatrics and also became a certified medical director (CMD) and served as medical director for three different nursing facilities in Fort Worth.  

She also became interested in end of life issues and ethics and served on the TMA committee for Aging and Long Term Care and the Council on Health Services.  She became a trainer for the AMA program for Education for Physicians in End of Life Care (EPEC) and an instructor for the Respecting Choices First Steps and Advanced Steps program—designed to help people understand and complete advance directives. 

She has served on two hospital ethics committees as member, chair and consultant. She is also a member of the Tarrant County Academy of Medicine Ethics Consortium chairing that body for seven years before her retirement.

Kim Callanan, MA, Executive Director of Texas Talks

Kim received her degrees in Economics and Health Care Administration from the University of Iowa. She served in consecutively responsible positions as a hospital administrator and health care system executive in Fort Worth, TX. Returning from several years off as a community volunteer and stay-at-home mother, she worked as a health care consultant. Ultimately this consulting work brought her to her passion, improving care at the end of life for patients, their families and clinicians. She serves as the Executive Director of Texas Talks, a 501c3 statewide organization focused on gaining adoption of end of life care conversations between patients and clinicians. She also represents Texas with the National POLST organization currently serving as the Executive Director while a search for a permanent replacement is conducted.

Raymond L. Fowler, MD, FACEP, FAEMS

Ray is the James M. Atkins MD Distinguished Professor of Emergency Medical Services, and Chief of the Division of EMS, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Fowler has been a practicing emergency medicine physician for over forty-three years, and he is Emergency Medicine faculty at Parkland Memorial Hospital Department of Emergency Medicine in Dallas, TX. He is one of the founding members of the medical specialty Emergency Medical Services, and he is Past- President of the National Association of EMS Physicians.

Robert Greenberg, MD, FACEP

Bobby is the Chief Medical Officer for Emergency Services, Central Texas Division of Baylor Scott & White Health and Associate Professor at Texas A&M College of Medicine in Temple, Texas.  He received his BS in medical technology from Northeast Louisiana University and his MD from Louisiana State University Medical Center-Shreveport.  He completed specialty training in Emergency Medicine at the University of Cincinnati Hospital.  Dr. Greenberg spent a great deal of his career as an EMS Medical Director and still provides direct patient care and supervises learners in emergency departments in central Texas.  

He is a Past President of the Texas College of Emergency Physicians and has served in multiple roles with the Texas Medical Association, Texas Hospital Association and American College of Emergency Physicians.  He is the past chair of the Governor’s EMS and Trauma Advisory Council, and currently chairs the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Correctional Managed Health Care Committee. 

Mike Johnston, MA, MDiv, DMin

Mike is the Chaplain for the Supportive and Palliative Care team at Baylor, Scott & White Health All Saints in Fort Worth. He is a native of North Carolina and graduated from UNC Chapel Hill, Union Presbyterian Seminary and Columbia Theological Seminary. 

Mike’s primary focus in recent years has been developing and implementing Advanced Care Planning conversations in a health system and across the state of South Carolina. He is a certified Palliative Care Chaplain, Respecting Choices First and Advanced Steps Facilitator and Instructor as well as a Trainer for Ariadne Lab’s Serious Illness Conversation Program. He is the education chair for Texas Talks and a Board member for Care & Prepare in Fort Worth. His wife is Dr. Valerie Johnston, faculty at TCU, and he has four children and two grandchildren.

Kirsti Krejs, MBA

Kirsti is the President and CEO of the Texas Non Profit Hospice Alliance (TNPHA). With members all across Texas, as well as in Arkansas, Louisiana and Ohio, TNPHA is an association of not-for-profit hospices that is dedicated to preserving and enhancing community based, non-profit hospice care. She has led the organization since 2011 but began working in the hospice sector in Texas in 2006. She is passionate about ensuring that patient’s wishes are communicated and respected and that all people have access to high quality end of life care. 

Ms. Krejs has spent her career in the non-profit arena and has previously held management positions at Leadership Austin, The Birch Aquarium at Scripps and the Utah Museum of Natural History. She has a BA from Carleton College and an MBA from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business.

Stuart Pickell, MD, MDiv, FACP, FAAP

Stuart serves as the chairperson for Texas Talks.  Holding degrees from The College of William & Mary, Princeton Theological Seminary and UT Southwestern Medical School,  he has experience in both parish ministry and primary care medical practice, professions that seek to address existential and physical human needs.  He is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and practices in Fort Worth, TX.

Dr. Pickell has held leadership positions in diverse local, state and national healthcare organizations, including the boards of a health information exchange startup company and a CMS pioneer Accountable Care Organization, (ACO).  His engagement in the ACO led to his interest in improving advance care planning initiatives in Texas and ultimately to co-found Texas Talks.  

In addition to his primary care practice, Dr. Pickell serves on the executive board of the Tarrant County Medical Society, Medical Director of Project Access (a volunteer organization that that helps underserved populations access specialty care) and as an Associate Professor at the UNTHSC-TCU School of Medicine where he is the ethics theme lead.