Meet the Spiritual Care Staff
Rev. Jeffrey Bert, M. Div., Board Certified Chaplain, Fremont – Jeff earned his Master of Divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. With extensive training in both the Catholic and Protestant Christian traditions, Jeff is ordained in the Metropolitan Community Churches and worked as a pastor before becoming a healthcare chaplain. He completed his clinical pastoral education residency at St. Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco. He’s served as chaplain to seniors at On Lok Lifeways and to the dying with Kaiser Hayward Hospice. He is a certified interfaith spiritual director and takes special interest in how each patient finds their sense of meaning and connection.
Rev. Carrie L. Buckner, M.DIv., BCC, ACPE Certified Educator is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA and is a Certified Educator with the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. (ACPE). She is also a board certified chaplain with the Association of Professional Chaplains. Before coming to Kaiser San Leandro Medical Center, she served as Director of Chaplain Services at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley/Oakland and as Manager of Spiritual Care Services at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital and at California Pacific Medical Center, both located in San Francisco. In these roles, she led several initiatives enhancing Diversity & Inclusion, created an interdisciplinary Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) response team, and co-chaired the Ethics Committee.
Carrie holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary. Carrie is active in her denomination, serving on several committees and as moderator of the Presbytery of San Francisco in 2008. She has served on the ACPE Pacific Regional Council, the regional Accreditation Committee and was treasurer of the ACPE Pacific Region. Carrie has been involved in transformational learning communities, including Healing the Heart of Diversity and Visions, Inc. and brings a passion for celebrating religious diversity in a spirit of humility and respect, rooted in community and inclusion.
Rev. Carol Estes, M.Div. Palliative Care Chaplain, Out-Patient, Carol earned her Master in Divinity from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. She completed a clinical pastoral education residency at University of North Carolina Hospitals in Chapel Hill, NC. In 2007, she was featured in Career Visions, an online magazine. She is a certified Domestic Violence / Substance Abuse counselor. Carol is also a certified Appreciative Inquiry facilitator. She has worked in the health-care field for more than twenty years.
Rev. Stephanie Gameros, M.Div., M.A.B.L. Board Certified Chaplain, San Leandro – Stephanie earned her Master of Divinity at the Pacific School of Religion and a Master in Biblical Languages at the Graduate Theology Union, in Berkeley. She completed her clinical pastoral education at the University of San Francisco Medical Center and is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. She is a “Singing Chaplain,” and often offers the intervention of a familiar song in order to promote healing, coping and peace for the listeners. Stephanie’s passion for the holistic healing benefits of music has led her to create and manage the Healing Music Program located in the hospital main lobby, and she has also partnered with the Employee Wellness program to teach a Line Dancing class. Her work has been highlighted in “So Healthy” magazine. Stephanie has received distinguished awards acknowledging her service at Kaiser Permanente, including the Ida Cannon Award and the Making Lives Better Award in 2017.
Titus George M.A., B.D., M.Th. Board Certified Chaplain, San Leandro, Titus came to the United States for a graduate study in Medical Anthropology. Instead, he became the first chaplain of Indian origin employed by Kaiser Permanente and the first Board Certified Chaplain with the Association of Professional Chaplains to be endorsed by the Mar Thoma Church of Malabar, India. Titus works to introduce the stories of illness and healing into the provision of spiritual care and attempts to see illness and healing through the eyes of patients and their families. He has published articles to popularize the stories of illness and developed a hospital-wide program, the Lunchtime Stories. Lunchtime Stories invite patient and their family to narrate their experience with illness and healing in an interview format in the presence of members of the hospital community.
Evan Wong serves as Inpatient Palliative Care Chaplain in the Fremont and San Leandro hospitals. A Buddhist practitioner, she is endorsed to serve as a chaplain by Insight Meditation Center and is board certified by the Association of Professional Chaplains, who granted her MDiv-equivalency. Evan completed ACPE residency at UCSF, where she specialized in palliative care, graduated from the Sati Center Buddhist Chaplaincy Program, and has lived in Buddhist monasteries and sat many silent meditation retreats. She is passionate about patient care and clinician resilience, utilizing challenges to help strengthen qualities of love and wisdom. Evan earned her BS from UC Berkeley in Environmental Engineering Science and taught school gardening and nutrition in low-income Bay Area schools.
