Karin Van Vlack
Karin provides spiritual and emotional support to patients receiving proton therapy treatment and palliative care.
Titles and Roles
- Spiritual Health Clinician and Fellow
- Emory Proton Therapy Center
- Spiritual Health Provider
- Adrenal Cancer
- Anal Cancer
- Appendix Cancer
- Bladder Cancer
- Brain and Spine Tumors
- Breast Cancer
- Cervical Cancer
- Colorectal Cancer
- Esophageal Cancer
- Gallbladder Cancer
- Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor
- Head and Neck Cancer
- Kidney Cancer
- Liver Cancer
- Lung Cancer
- Lymphoma
- Melanoma
- Multiple Myeloma
- Neuroendocrine Tumors
- Ocular Melanoma
- Ovarian Cancer
- Pancreatic Cancer
- Penile Cancer
- Prostate Cancer
- Sarcoma
- Skin Cancer
- Stomach Cancer
- Testicular Cancer
- Thyroid Cancer
- Uterine Cancer
Biography
Rev. Karin Van Vlack is a Spiritual Health Clinician and Fellow for Winship Cancer Institute at the Emory Proton Therapy Center. Karin provides spiritual and emotional support to patients with cancer treated with proton therapy. Additionally, Karin supports patients receiving palliative care at the Emory Outpatient Supportive Care Clinic. She enjoys helping to cultivate conditions for patients and their care partners to reflect on the relationships and practices that are most supportive and meaningful in their living.
Education
Karin is a graduate of the Zen Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program at Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The following year, she was ordained as a lay minister by Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD. She finished additional coursework at the Institute of Buddhist Studies and the Starr King School for the Ministry. Karin completed clinical pastoral education internships at Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) hospitals before going on to completed a residency at CHI Franciscan Hospice and Palliative Care. She holds a certificate in end-of-life doula care.