Faculty

BIOSKETCH

Lillian F. Pliner, MD, FACP, Acting Director, Division of Hematology/Oncology, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at UMDNJ/NJMS.  She attended Smith College and graduated cum laude with Honors in Biochemistry.  She then attended the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Medicine.  She did her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the Boston University Hospital Medical Center.  She completed her Fellowship training in Hematology/Oncology at The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  She is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Medical Oncology, and Hospice and Palliative Medicine.  She has been on staff at Bayonne and Union Hospitals, and is currently on staff at Saint Barnabas Hospital and University Hospital, Newark, New Jersey. 

At University Hospital and the New Jersey Medical School, Dr. Pliner teaches, does clinical research and maintains an active oncology practice.  She sits on the Credentials Committee, Ethics Committee, the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, the Radiation Safety Committee and the Oncology Committee.  She is chair of the Human Use Subcommittee of the Radiation Safety Committee, Chair of the Oncology Subcommittee of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, and Chair of the Credentials Committee.
She is the Lead Physician for both the Inpatient Oncology Unit of University Hospital and Outpatient Hematology/Oncology Services.  Her clinical research interests are focused in sarcoma, head and neck cancer and hepatocellular cancer.  Dr Pliner is the institutional Principal Investigator for ECOG, co-Principal Investigator of the Minority Based CCOP, and Principal Investigator of the MAP-3 study. 

Dr. Pliner has a long-standing passion for hospice and palliative medicine.  In the early 1990’s, she was a Medical Director for The Hospice of New Jersey.  Subsequently, she
became the Medical Director for the University Hospital inpatient hospice beds for Compassionate Care Hospice.  Since 2006, she has been the Senior Medical Director for Care Alternatives Hospice.

Dr. Pliner is a certified EPEC trainer and received the New Jersey Hospice and Palliative Care Organization Physician of the Year Award in 2002.  She was awarded the Leonard Tow Humanism Award in 2005.  She has been nominated multiple times for Golden Apple Awards.