Learn more about the researchers within the Division of General Internal Medicine (DGIM) at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Steven J. Atlas

Steven J. Atlas, MD, MPH

Director, Practice Based Research Network, Massachusetts General Hospital
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Dr. Atlas is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the primary care practice-based research network in the DGIM at Mass General, where he is also a practicing primary care physician. Dr. Atlas received his MD degree from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and Masters in Public Health from Harvard University. He completed training in internal medicine at Mass General and a fellowship in general medicine at Harvard Medical School. His work focuses on how health information technology and workflow redesign can support population-based, patient centered care that improves quality and efficiency, and decreases disparities in care. He has developed methods to improve patient attribution to patients to physicians and practices for research studies as well as for quality reporting and improvement activities within primary care networks. His research is supported by National Institutes of Health and industry grants and includes pragmatic studies of population-based preventive cancer screening and chronic disease management in primary care networks. He also works with organizations that seek to improve patient and clinician access to information to support informed medical decision making. He is a medical editor for Healthwise, a non-profit company with a mission to help people make better health decisions, and with UpToDate, a comprehensive evidence-based electronic clinical information resource for clinicians. He also works as an evidence author for the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review to evaluate the efficacy and cost effectiveness of new therapies.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Jeffrey M. Ashburner, PhD, MPH

Jeffrey M. Ashburner, PhD, MPH

Research Staff, Mass General
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Dr. Ashburner is an epidemiologist within the DGIM at Mass General and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He completed his Master’s and Doctoral studies in Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. He has worked directly with the Mass General Primary Care Practice-Based Research Network to develop, test and implement population-based interventions within primary care systems. Dr. Ashburner’s research has focused on cardiovascular disease prevention, specifically on anticoagulation, risk of stroke and risk of bleeding complications among patients with atrial fibrillation. He is co-investigator of an ongoing 16-practice randomized controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of screening for undiagnosed atrial fibrillation as part of usual care at primary care visits. Dr. Ashburner has a career development award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute focused on using natural language processing to identify risk factors and predict risk of developing atrial fibrillation, and to conduct a pilot risk-guided population-based screening study. 

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Travis P. Baggett

Travis P. Baggett, MD, MPH

Physician Investigator, Division of General Internal Medicine, Mass General
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Director of Research, Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program

Biography

Dr. Baggett is a physician-investigator in the DGIM at Mass General, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Research at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program. His research focuses on the health of people experiencing homelessness, with an emphasis on tobacco use and other addictive disorders. His work has been supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the American Cancer Society and Mass General, where he was named an inaugural recipient of the Department of Medicine Transformative Scholars Program award for junior faculty investigators with exceptional vision and promise. He is board certified in internal medicine and addiction medicine. His clinical work focuses on providing primary care to homeless people with serious mental illness

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Michael J. Barry, MD

Michael J. Barry, MD

Director, Informed Medical Decisions Program, Mass General
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Dr. Michael Barry directs the Informed Medical Decisions Program (IMDP) at Mass General. His research interests include defining the outcomes of different strategies for the evaluation and treatment of prostate diseases, decision analysis, health status measurement, clinical quality improvement and the use of decision aids to facilitate patients’ participation in decision making. Dr. Barry is a past president of the Society for Medical Decision Making and the Society of General Internal Medicine. He is a Master of the American College of Physicians (ACP). In 2020, he won the Henry D. Bruce Memorial Award for Distinguished Contributions to preventive medicine from the ACP. Dr. Barry is serving as a vice-chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force after a four-year term as a member of the Task Force. He continues to practice adult primary care at Internal Medicine Associates.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Suzanne Brodney

Suzanne Brodney, PhD, MS, RDN

Investigator, Division of General Internal Medicine, Mass General

Biography

Suzanne is an epidemiologist who works with the Center for the Transformation of Internal Medicine (CENTRI), the Informed Medical Decisions Program and the Health Decision Sciences Center. Her efforts have focused on managing a variety of complex research projects, as well as research to contribute to the scientific evidence to help patients make better health decisions. The strategies she employs to improve medical decision making include shared decision making and patient decision aid development, adoption and implementation of shared decision making and patient decision aids in clinical practice, and the development of measures to document outcomes that matter to patients. She also provides methodology support and project management for CENTRI, which is a funded initiative in DGIM designed to implement and evaluate innovative clinical or educational programs in primary care.

Jocelyn A. Carter, MD, MPH

Jocelyn A. Carter, MD, MPH

Director of the Community Care Transitions (C-CAT) Initiative, MGPO
Internal Medicine Hospitalist, Albright Medicine
Manager of Trainee Affairs, Mass General Center for Diversity and Inclusion
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Dr. Jocelyn A. Carter, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and a practicing internal medicine hospitalist of the Albright Hospital Medicine Unit within the DGIM at Mass General. She also serves as director of the CCAT Community Care Transitions (C-CAT) Initiative linking inpatients at high- risk for readmission with community health workers focused on closing gaps in care driven by social determinants of health. Dr. Carter’s primary research interests include studying health care delivery innovations derived from patient perspectives and evidence-based interventions that improve health outcomes (e.g. hospital readmissions and health care utilization). Dr. Carter is particularly interested in population health interventions and care delivery models that leverage technology while promoting prevention. Dr. Carter is the recipient of the 2012 Mass General Clinician Teacher Development Award, the 2016 Mass General Brigham Center for Population Health Systems Implementation Delivery System Award, and the 2017 Aetna Foundation Innovation Fellowship Award sponsored by the Mass General Healthcare Transformation Lab. Dr. Carter is the Manger of Trainee Affairs for the Mass General Center for Diversity and Inclusion, a member of the Mass General Department of Medicine’s Internship Selection Committee, and a Professional Coach for Department of Medicine trainees. Dr. Carter also sits on the American Board of Preventive Medicine Public Health Committee.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Yuchiao Chang, PhD

Yuchiao Chang, PhD

Biostatistician, Mass General
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Dr. Chang is the primary statistician of DGIM, providing biostatistical support for researchers. Additionally, Dr. Chang has collaborated on various grants with investigators from many different specialties. Dr. Chang also supports many hospital operations improvement projects.

Dr. Chang participated in the Mass General Clinical Research Program from 1997 to 2001. Through this activity, she provided statistical consultation to the entire Mass General community. Over the years, Dr. Chang also provided extensive formal and informal teaching to her clinical colleagues to improve their understanding of statistical science.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Susan Edgman-Levitan, PA

Susan Edgman-Levitan, PA

Executive Director of the John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation, Mass General Lecturer on Medicine and Associate in Health Policy, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Susan Edgman-Levitan, PA, is Executive Director of the John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital. Prior to coming to Mass General, she was the founding President of the Picker Institute. She is a Lecturer in the Department of Medicine at Mass General and an Associate in Health Policy at Harvard Medical School. A constant advocate of understanding the patient's perspective on healthcare, Susan has been the co-principal investigator on the Harvard Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Study (CAHPS) study from 1995 to the present and she is the IHI Fellow for Patient and Family-Centered Care. She is an editor of Through the Patient's Eyes, a book on creating and sustaining patient centered care, The CAHPS Improvement Guide, and has authored many papers and other publications on patient-centered care. She is a co-author of the Institute of Medicine 2006 report, The Future of Drug Safety: Promoting and Protecting the Health of the Public.

Ms. Edgman-Levitan serves on several boards and national advisory committees, including the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, the National Patient Safety Foundation, the National Health Services Corps Advisory Council, the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative, and is a member of the Lucian Leape Institute. Ms. Edgman-Levitan is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Duke University Physician Assistant program where she received the Distinguished Alumni award from the Duke Physician Assistant Program and was inducted into the Duke University Medical Center Hall of Fame in 2004. Ms. Edgman-Levitan was awarded the 2007 Leadership and Innovation award from the Center for Information Therapy. She lives in Chestnut Hill, MA with her husband, Richard, and daughter, Amelia.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Danielle R. Fine, MD, MPH

Danielle R. Fine, MD, MSC

Assistant in Medicine, Mass General
Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography
Kenneth A. Freedberg, MD, MSC

Kenneth A. Freedberg, MD, MSC

Director, Medical Practice Evaluation Center, Mass General
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Adjunct Professor of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Biography

Kenneth A. Freedberg, MD, is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Mass General and Director of the Program in Epidemiology and Outcomes Research at the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research (CFAR). He also directs the Medical Practice Evaluation Center within the Department of Medicine at Mass General.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Jennifer S. Haas, MD, MSC

Jennifer S. Haas, MD, MSC

Peter L. Gross MD Chair in Primary Care, Mass General
Director of Research and Research Education, DGIM
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Biography

Jennifer Haas, MD, MSc is the Peter L. Gross MD Chair in Primary Care in the DGIM at Mass General and Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and in the Department of Social and Behavioral Health at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She is a practicing general internist and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. She currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Dr. Haas’ research has focused on elucidating and reducing racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in health care and outcomes, with a particular focus on cancer control and prevention including tobacco use and treatment. Her research also focuses on the implementation and evaluation of systems-based interventions to improve the use of screening and prevention in primary care and how health information technology can improve the flow of information between patients and providers. She is currently a Principal Investigator of four NIH studies, including a regional collaboration to reduce disparities in breast cancer care and a national consortium to optimize the delivery of the cervical cancer screening process. Dr. Haas has published over 190 peer-reviewed articles, and has been continuously funded as a Principal Investigator for over 25 years. She is the Principal Investigator of a fellowship training grant (T32) in general internal medicine and has served as a mentor to over 50 fellows and junior faculty.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Leland Hull, MD, MPH

Leland Hull, MD, MPH

Assistant in Medicine, Mass General DGIM
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Leland Hull, MD, MPH, is a general internist and early career investigator in the DGIM at Mass General. Her clinical and research interests focus on the development, testing and evaluation of novel approaches to improve uptake of population-based preventive genetic testing, especially in the primary care setting.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Jessica Haberer, MD, MS

Jessica Haberer, MD, MS

Director of Research, Mass General Center for Global Health
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Biography

Jessica Haberer, MD, MS, is an internist at Mass General and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She has been working in global health and studying adherence to antiretroviral medications for the treatment and prevention of HIV infection since the early 2000s. Her research focuses on real-time adherence monitoring and intervention. Current projects are based in Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Julie Levison, MD, MPHIL

Julie Levison, MD, MPHIL

Assistant Physician, Mass General
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Julie Levison, MD, MPhil, MPH, FACP, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and is board certified in internal medicine and infectious disease. Her clinical interests are in general infectious diseases, HIV medicine, and immigrant health with a focus on a team-based, patient-centered approach to delivering infectious disease specialty care in the community setting.

Her research focuses on understanding and addressing disparities in HIV outcomes in minority populations with specific attention to immigrant populations. She is principle investigator of a K23 career development award from the National Institute of Mental Health to develop and evaluate a community health worker intervention to improve engagement in HIV care in Latino immigrants in the greater Boston area. She has developed novel tools to leverage the electronic medical record for HIV outcomes research with immigrant populations. Working in partnership with community-based organizations and health care providers, Dr. Levison focuses on developing effective interventions to improve HIV care and treatment in Latino immigrants.

She is an active member of the Infectious Disease Society of America and the American College of Physicians, where she is a Fellow. She is also a Research Scientist in the National Hispanic Science Network. Dr. Levison was named to El Planeta’s Powermeter 100, a list of Massachusetts’ 2017 Most Influential People for Latinos. Dr. Levison is the recipient of the Arnold Gold Foundation Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award from Harvard Medical School and has spoken nationally and internationally on physician responsibility in the care of survivors of torture.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Felippe O. Marcondes, MD, MPH

Felippe O. Marcondes, MD, MPH

Physician Investigator, Division of General Internal Medicine, Mass General
Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Felippe O. Marcondes, MD, MPH is a physician-investigator in the DGIM at Mass General Hospital, Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and faculty member at the Mongan Institute at Mass General. He is a graduate of Southern Adventist University and University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) John Sealy School of Medicine and did residency training in Internal Medicine at UTMB. Dr. Marcondes completed a fellowship in General Internal Medicine, during which he received an MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is a current fellow in the inaugural cohort of the Health Affairs’ Health Equity Fellowship for Trainees. Dr. Marcondes’ s research focuses on the intersection of racial/ethnic health disparities among individuals with chronic illnesses, health care policy, and digital health technology use, with particular interest in Latino health and immigrant health. Boarded in Internal Medicine, Dr. Marcondes sees patients as a primary care physician at MGH.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Melissa L. Mattison, MD

Melissa L. Mattison, MD

Chief of Hospital Medicine, Mass General
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Melissa L.P. Mattison, MD, FACP, SFHM, is the chief of hospital medicine at Mass General and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Dr. Mattison works clinically as a hospitalist and geriatrician and focuses her research and clinical innovation efforts on improving care for hospitalized elders.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

James B. Meigs, MD, MPH, FAHA

James B. Meigs, MD, MPH, FAHA

Physician, Mass General DGIM
Co-Director of the Mass General Clinical Research Program’s Clinical Effectiveness Research Group
Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School

Biography

Dr. Meigs’ major research interest is the cause and prevention of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. He has used biochemical and genetic epidemiology and health services translational research approaches. As of May 2019, in Web of Science, Dr. Meigs has 663 scientific publications with an h-index of 113 with over 57,000 cited articles, and during 2014-2016, he was one of Thompson-Reuters “Highly Cited Investigators”. In 2009, he was awarded the ADA’s prestigious Kelly West Award for Outstanding Achievement in Diabetes Epidemiology.

Dr. Meigs is a senior leader of many major large international T2D genomics consortia, including MAGIC, DIAGRAM, AAGILE, CHARGE- and TOPMed-diabetes and NIDDK T2D AMP. He is the PI, co-PI or co-investigator on many NIH grants, currently including 5U01 DK078616-10: Rare Genetic Variation and Diabetes Quantitative Traits. Dr. Meigs is a member of the steering committee of the NIDDK Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP) - Type 2 Diabetes and of the NIDDK's Diabetes in America, volume 3. He has formally mentored over 50 early career investigators (including nine K23/K01/K99 mentees), most of whom have remained in academic medicine, and he is a Mass General Institutional Research Mentor. In addition, for 30 years he has been a practicing primary care general internist at Mass General.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Joshua P. Metlay, MD, PhD

Joshua P. Metlay, MD, PhD

Chief, Mass General DGIM
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Biography

Dr. Joshua P. Metlay, MD, PhD, is Chief of Mass General. Dr. Metlay received his bachelor's degree from Yale University, his PhD in Immunology from Rockefeller University, and his MD from Cornell University Medical College. He completed residency and chief residency in internal medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and a fellowship in general internal medicine and epidemiology at Mass General. He also received a Master of Science in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Metlay's research spans two major areas, the epidemiology of drug resistance among common bacterial respiratory pathogens, particularly S. pneumoniae and the development and evaluation of interventions to improve the quality of treatment decisions for respiratory tract infections. This research has led to numerous federal grants from NIAID, CDC, and AHRQ and roles on national advisory committees in the area of infectious diseases epidemiology.

Dr. Metlay is dedicated to education and mentorship. He has been recognized with a number of honors including the Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2008 (Pen's highest teaching honor), the Mid-Career Research and Mentorship Award from the Society of General Internal Medicine in 2010, and the Arthur Asbury Outstanding Faculty Mentorship Award from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 2011.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Kristian R. Olson, MD

Kristian R. Olson, MD

Director of the Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies (CAMTech) at Mass General Global Health
Chief Innovation Officer - Medicine Residency, Mass General
Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Kristian Olson is the Director of the Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies (CAMTech) based at Mass General Global Health and is also a member of the Core Educator Faculty in the Department of Medicine at Mass General. He is both a Pediatrician and Internist and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. He has worked in Thailand, Darfur, Indonesia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Uganda and India. He is a serial innovator and one of the architects of the CAMTech Innovation platform that champions "co-creation" and open innovation.

He completed an undergraduate degree in biology at the University of British Columbia, medical school at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and his residency training in the Harvard Combined Medicine and Pediatrics Program. He trained in the Masters of Public Health program at the University of Sydney as a US Fulbright Scholar and completed a Diploma in Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2003 as Mass General’s first Durant Fellow in Refugee Medicine.

In 2009, he was named to the Scientific American Top 10 Honor Roll as an individual who has demonstrated leadership in applying new technologies and biomedical discoveries for the benefit of humanity.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Sue Regan, PhD

Sue Regan, PhD

Senior Scientist, Mass General
Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Dr. Regan is an experimental psychologist with expertise in research methods and statistical analysis. She designs and implements data collection systems for clinical research projects. Her ongoing projects include data management for several multi-center randomized controlled trials of smoking cessation interventions, analysis of electronic medical record data to assess outcomes of hospital-based initiatives to address substance use disorders and several observational studies of patients living with HIV in Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda.

Dr. Regan's interests include applying natural language processing, data mining and machine learning techniques to develop methods for longitudinal medical record data in observational studies. Her research involves developing algorithms for classifying patients on uncoded or inadequately coded characteristics such as smoking status, over-the-counter medication use and foreign-born status.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Nancy Rigotti, MD

Nancy Rigotti, MD

Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Director, Tobacco Research and Treatment Center; Associate Chief for Academic Advancement; Director, Office of Women’s Careers, Mass General

Biography

Nancy Rigotti, MD, is an academic general internist at Harvard Medical School and Mass General. She completed a residency in primary care internal medicine at Mass General and research training in a general medicine fellowship at Harvard Medical School. At Mass General, she serves as Associate Chief of the DGIM. As a national leader in general internal medicine and primary care, Dr. Rigotti is Past President of the Society of General Internal Medicine.

Within general medicine, Dr. Rigotti's special interest is in preventive medicine with a focus on reducing tobacco use, the leading preventable cause of death worldwide. Throughout her career, she has advocated to have health care systems be more active in addressing their patients' tobacco use. She founded and directs Mass General's Tobacco Research and Treatment Center, which combines a clinical program offering state-of-the-art tobacco dependence treatment with a research group that develops and tests smoking treatment interventions in health care settings that include hospitalizations, adult and pediatric primary care and specialty care. She has also evaluated tobacco control public policies. She is a Past President of the Society for Research in Nicotine and Tobacco and has contributed to and edited U.S. Surgeon Generals Reports on Tobacco. She chaired the Tobacco Task Force (quality improvement team) of Mass General Brigham and served as Course Director of the Preventive Medicine and Nutrition course at Harvard Medical School for many years.

A second focus for Dr. Rigotti is women's health and women's careers in medicine. She is a founding member of Mass General Women's Health Associates and serves as Director of Mass General's Office of Women's Careers.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Chana Sacks, MD, MPH

Chana Sacks, MD, MPH

Co-Director, Mass General Center for Gun Violence Prevention
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Chana A. Sacks, MD, MPH is a general internist in the Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the Co-Director of the Mass General Center for Gun Violence Prevention. Dr. Sacks attended the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and completed her residency and Chief Residency in Internal Medicine at Mass General. She completed a research fellowship focused on pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital while completing her MPH at the Harvard School of Public Health. Since joining the faculty in the DGIM, Dr. Sacks has focused her health policy work on developing and implementing a public health approach to addressing gun violence in Boston and across the country. Dr. Sacks’ research focuses on the prevention of firearm-related injuries and suicide prevention, particularly among older adults. She is also the executive editor of NEJM Evidence.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Karen Sepucha, PhD

Karen Sepucha, PhD

Director, Health Decision Sciences Center, Mass General DGIM
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Dr. Sepucha is the director of the Health Decision Sciences Center in the DGIM at Mass General and an Associate Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Her research and clinical interests involve developing and implementing tools and methods to improve the quality of significant medical decisions made by patients and clinicians. Dr. Sepucha was the medical editor for a series of five breast cancer patient decision aids (PtDAs) developed by the not-for-profit Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making. The PtDAs have won seven media awards, and Dr. Sepucha has led the dissemination of these programs to dozens of academic and community cancer centers across the country.

She is also responsible for efforts to implement shared decision making tools into primary and specialty care at Mass General Brigham. Her recent research has focused on the development of instruments to measure the quality of decisions. The decision quality instruments have been used in a national survey of medical decisions, and a subset of the items is being evaluated for use in CAHPS as part of the primary care medical home certification.

Dr. Sepucha has been active in local, national and international efforts to improve decision quality, including the International Patient Decision Aids Standards collaboration. She has her PhD in Engineering-Economic Systems and Operations Research at Stanford University, with a focus in decision sciences.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Sachin J. Shah, MD, MPH

Sachin J. Shah, MD, MPH

Physician Investigator, Division of General Internal Medicine, Mass General
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Dr. Shah’s research helps older adults make individualized treatment decisions when they face high-stakes medical decisions like deciding to use blood thinners or undergo a medical procedure. His work helps physicians and patients make medical decisions accounting for the whole person. Dr. Shah works collaboratively with patient groups, physicians, nurses, statisticians, informaticists, economists, and epidemiologists.

After attending Yale Medical School, Dr. Shah completed his residency, chief residency, and research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research has garnered national awards from the American Heart Association and the American College of Physicians. Additionally, Dr. Shah has served as an expert advising the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service and the National Quality Forum.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Leigh Simmons, MD

Leigh Simmons, MD

Clinical Director, Shared Decision Making Program, Mass General
Assistant Physician, General Internal Medicine, Mass General
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Leigh Simmons, MD, is a native of Tennessee. She is a graduate of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and trained in internal medicine at Mass General, where she served as a chief resident in 2007-08. Dr. Simmons is a medical student educator and directs the internal medicine clerkship for Harvard Medical School students at Mass General. Her clinical practice is with the Internal Medicine Associates, where she actively engages medical students in practicing primary care. Her research interests include patient engagement in care and shared decision making. Dr. Simmons is the medical director of the Mass General Health Decision Sciences Center, where she studies the use of decision aids to help patients and clinicians in the shared decision making process.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Daniel E. Singer, MD

Daniel E. Singer, MD

Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School
Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health

Biography

Daniel E. Singer, MD, is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Singer has applied epidemiologic methods, including both observational studies and randomized trials, to common medical conditions. He is most widely recognized for his contributions to stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation. He has also worked with Dr. Nancy Rigotti for more than 25 years on studies of smoking cessation. Dr. Singer’s research work has been recognized by several awards, including the Society of General Internal Medicine’s highest research award, the John Eisenberg Award, and his training of mentees by Harvard Medical School’s William Silen Award for lifetime achievements in mentoring.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Joanna Streck, PhD

Joanna Streck, PhD

Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
Associate Director of HPRIR Addiction Science Research and Programs
Staff Psychologist, MGH SUD Bridge Clinic

Biography

Dr. Joanna Streck is an Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, the Associate Director of Addiction Science Research and Programs in the Health Promotion and Resiliency Program at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a Core Faculty Member in the MGH Tobacco Research and Treatment Center and MGH Center for Addiction Medicine, and a licensed Clinical Psychologist at the MGH Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Bridge Clinic. Her program of research seeks to identify effective tobacco cessation and harm reduction interventions for vulnerable populations who smoke with a focus on those with co-morbid SUD. Dr. Streck is currently the PI of a NIDA K23 proposal investigating the effects of switching adults with SUDs who smoke cigarettes from cigarettes to e-cigarettes to test tobacco harm reduction.

Anne N. Thorndike, MD, MPH

Anne N. Thorndike, MD, MPH

Director of Metabolic Syndrome Clinic, Mass General
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Dr. Thorndike’s research focus is on individual and population-level behavioral interventions to prevent cardiometabolic disease. Through implementation research, her team has demonstrated the effectiveness of traffic light labels, choice architecture, social norms and financial incentives to promote healthy food choices in real-life settings, such as worksite cafeterias and supermarkets. Her research has also tested new strategies to increase healthy food choices among low-income populations in both urban and rural community settings. As a member of the Mass General Executive Committee on Community Health, she has helped to champion hospital-wide efforts to address social determinants of health, such as food and housing insecurity. She is leading an NIH-funded evaluation of a Massachusetts Medicaid program to provide food and housing supports for patients with health-related social needs. Dr. Thorndike’s past research on tobacco includes important findings on the treatment of tobacco by physicians, and she remains actively involved in projects to address tobacco use in people with serious mental illness. Her research has been funded by several NIH and foundation grants.

Dr. Thorndike is the Director of the Metabolic Syndrome Clinic at the Mass General Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Center. The focus of the clinic is prevention of cardiometabolic disease and obesity through lifestyle changes. Dr. Thorndike treats patients individually and also leads a 12-week group program incorporating nutrition, exercise, behavior change and stress management.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Matthew Tobey, MD, MPH

Matthew Tobey, MD, MPH

Director, Rural Medicine Programs
Director, Fellowship Program in Rural Health Leadership
Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School

Biography

Dr. Tobey works as an innovator, clinician, educator and researcher in rural partnerships. Since 2012, he has worked to establish partnerships with rural partner communities. The two largest rural partnerships, between Mass General and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Indian Health Service, are now formalized through shared memoranda. The partnerships center on responding to the workforce, health equity and capacity development goals of rural partners. To respond to requests for clinical support, since September 2016, Mass General clinical staff have provided 365-day coverage of the Rosebud, South Dakota Indian Health Service clinic and hospital. As a central component of these efforts, Dr. Tobey directs the Mass General Fellowship Program in Rural Health Leadership, which offers post-residency training to physicians who seek ongoing training in rural health, health systems, practice transformation, medical education and clinical care.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Virginia A. Triant, MD, MPH

Virginia A. Triant, MD, MPH

Associate Physician, Mass General
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Virginia Triant, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Assistant Physician in Infectious Diseases at Mass General. Dr. Triant joined the MPEC in 2012. Her research focuses on the intersection of HIV and chronic disease complications, with a focus on cardiovascular disease. She has developed a Mass General Brigham based HIV longitudinal clinical care cohort to investigate cardiovascular and metabolic outcomes, risk factors, prevention, risk prediction, and management, as well as other HIV epidemiology questions. Dr. Triant earned her MD from Yale School of Medicine.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Angelo E. Volandes, MD, MPH

Angelo E. Volandes, MD, MPH

Associate Professor of Medicine, Mass General and Harvard Medical School

Biography

A key ingredient to informed patient-doctor discussions regarding serious illness care includes the patient’s ability to understand and imagine hypothetical disease states and medical interventions. However, studies suggest that there are numerous barriers to communication between doctors and patients. One innovation to surmount these barriers includes using video decision aids to reinforce serious illness conversations. Dr. Angelo E. Volandes leads a group of internationally recognized researchers who create and study video decision aids to empower patients and families to make informed decisions at the end of life.

Dr. Volandes is Associate Professor of Medicine at Mass General and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Volandes' research is focused on improving patient decision-making and is supported by the NIH, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Alzheimer’s Association, the Betty and Gordon Moore Foundation, the Stupski Foundation, and the Melik-Baschkopf Foundation.

He received his BA in philosophy from Harvard College, his medical degree from the Yale School of Medicine and a Masters of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. Following medical school, Dr. Volandes completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He then completed fellowships in medical ethics at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. He was named the Edmond J. Safra Faculty Fellow in 2004-5 at the Harvard University Center for Ethics.

His first book was just released by Bloomsbury Press and is titled The Conversation: A Revolutionary Plan for End-of-Life Care.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile

Sarah E. Wakeman, MD

Sarah E. Wakeman, MD

Medical Director, Program in Substance Use & Addiction Services (PSAS)
Program Director, Addiction Medicine Fellowship
Medical Director, Mass General Addiction Consult Team
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Biography

Sarah E. Wakeman, MD is the Medical Director for the Mass General Program in Substance Use & Addiction Services (PSAS), program director of the Mass General Addiction Medicine fellowship, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is also the Medical Director of the Mass General Hospital Addiction Consult Team, co-chair of the Mass General Opioid Task Force, clinical co-lead of the Mass General Brigham Substance Use Disorder Initiative and co-chair of the Mass General Brigham Opioid Steering Committee. She is the Chief Medical Officer of RIZE Massachusetts, a nonprofit foundation working to address the opioid overdose crisis.

She received her A.B. from Brown University and her M.D. from Brown Medical School. She completed residency training in internal medicine and served as Chief Medical Resident at Mass General. She is a diplomate and fellow of the American Board of Addiction Medicine and board certified in Addiction Medicine by the American Board of Preventive Medicine. She is chair of the policy committee for the Massachusetts Society of Addiction Medicine. She served on Massachusetts' Governor Baker’s Opioid Addiction Working Group. Nationally, she served as chair of the American Society of Addiction Medicine Drug Court Task Force and serves on their Ethics Committee.

Clinically she provides specialty addiction and general medical care in the inpatient and outpatient setting at Mass General and the MGH Charlestown Health Center. Her research interests include evaluating models for integrated substance use disorder treatment in general medical settings, low threshold treatment models, recovery coaching, physician attitudes and practice related to substance use disorder, and screening for substance use in primary care.

Publications

Harvard Catalyst Profile