Dr. Patricia O'Malley, formerly an attending physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Emergency Medicine and now Medical Director of Pediatric Palliative Care at MGHfC, received her M.D. from Duke University School of Medicine and completed her residency in pediatrics at MGH.  Dr. O'Malley has done several fellowships:  in anesthesia and intensive care at Children's Hospital Medical Center; in clinical pastoral education at MGH; and in palliative care at MGH.  Dr. O'Malley is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. O'Malley has consulted to the federal program on Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC), and the Massachusetts state Office of EMS, promoting many educational and policy goals for the emergency care of children As chair of the MA Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) subcommittee on pediatric emergency medicine, Dr. O'Malley developed a manual on office based emergencies for primary care providers, used by the 2002 national AAP annual conference in a workshop on office readiness. She is lead author on the Pediatrics policy statement and technical report regarding Death of a Child in the Emergency Department.

Dr. O'Malley serves as national faculty for the Initiative for Pediatric Palliative Care (IPPC) and was invited by the MA Department of Public Health to provide training to staff for new MA state program in pediatric palliative care. She is the pediatric representative to the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) initiative to integrate palliative care principles into emergency care. (IPAL-EM) and is faculty in the pediatric track of Palliative Care Education and Practice of the Harvard Center for Palliative Care.