A Conversation with Dr. Jessica Zitter and Chaplain Betty Clark

On Thursday, May 14, we welcome — critical and palliative care physician, documentary filmmaker and founder of — alongside Chaplain Betty Clark, longtime palliative care chaplain at Alameda Health System, for a conversation about their decade-long partnership and what it has taught them about how we care for people at the end of life.

End-of-life care in America is, by most measures, broken. Patients routinely receive aggressive treatment they would not have chosen. Families are left to navigate impossible decisions in moments of crisis. The inequities baked into the healthcare system are felt most acutely by those least equipped to absorb them.

Dr. Zitter and Chaplain Clark — an unlikely team within the hierarchical, siloed walls of a hospital — have spent more than a decade modeling a different way: one that honors both spirit and body, that meets patients where they are and that has changed countless lives in the process.

Their work is the subject of the award-winning documentary , which Darren Walker, former president of the Ford Foundation, has called, “a timely and compelling exploration of the hidden dangers of implicit bias in healthcare.”

Join MATTER CEO Steven Collens for a conversation with Dr. Zitter and Chaplain Clark about what they've learned about humanizing care in the most consequential moments of patients' lives — and what their partnership can teach the rest of healthcare about compassion, collaboration and confronting the inequities that shape who gets to die well.

Be sure to also attend the screening of The Chaplin & The Doctor at the Logan Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, on Thursday, May 14, from 7PM–9PM CT. Register for the screening .

Agenda (CT)

10:00am | Doors open

10:30am | Panel discussion

11:30am | Coffee & continued conversation

12:00am | Event concludes

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Dr. Jessica Zitter

Founder of Reel Medicine Media

Jessica Zitter, MD, MPH is a documentary filmmaker, writer, physician and founder of Reel Medicine Media, a non-profit devoted to using story to transform and humanize medical culture. She practices the unusual combination of critical care and palliative care medicine at Highland Hospital, the public hospital in Oakland, California.

Dr. Zitter was a primary featured subject and member of the team behind the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary Extremis (2016). She went on to direct and produce the award-winning Caregiver: A Love Story (2020), which examines the growing crisis of family caregiver burden in the United States. Her third documentary, The Chaplain & The Doctor (2025), explores the transformative relationship between a hospital chaplain and a physician challenging the fragmented clinical approach to patient care. Her book, Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life (2017), describes her evolution from a doctor focused on extending life at all costs to one more patient-centered and humanistic.

Her essays and articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and other publications. She has been featured on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, The Doctors, Dr. Oz, and CBS Sunday Morning, and was recently named one of Next Avenue's "Influencers in Aging."

Chaplain Betty Clark

Founder of Church Without Walls

Chaplain Betty Clark, MDiv has served as a hospice chaplain for 16 years and a palliative care chaplain at Alameda Health System for 15. She holds a Master of Divinity from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, with certificates in palliative care chaplaincy, managing spiritual care, and grief counseling.

Chaplain Clark is the founder of Church Without Walls, where she pastored alongside Rev. Eugene Williams for 26 years. She is also the founder of the East Bay Community End of Life Coalition, the first woman president of the Saint Lukes Society, and the first woman president of the board of the ARC of the East Bay. Her guiding belief: that we are all wounded healers walking together toward wholeness, that no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care, and that the question worth asking is not what is wrong with someone, but what happened to them.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Steven Collens

CEO of MATTER

Steven Collens is CEO of MATTER, the premier healthcare incubator and innovation hub. MATTER helps healthcare innovators achieve their goals faster and more efficiently and increases the odds of their success. MATTER has incubated more than 1,100 healthcare technology ventures and helps leading health systems, life sciences companies, payers and foundations activate innovation to advance their goals.

Prior to assuming his current role, Steven was senior vice president at Pritzker Group, the investment firm led by Tony and J.B. Pritzker. In that capacity, he led the team that created 1871, Chicago's center for digital startups, which became the top-ranked business incubator in the world in 2018. He previously worked at Abbott in a variety of domestic and international functions, including product management, policy and public affairs. Prior to Abbott, Steven served as legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun.

Steven holds an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and a BA from Washington University in St. Louis. He chairs the board of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and serves on the boards of 1871 and the Chicago High School for the Arts. He is a member of ChicagoNEXT, the Chicago mayor's council on technology and innovation, a Leadership Greater Chicago fellow, and a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and the Commercial Club of Chicago.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher MATTER