Kei Ouchi, MD, MPH
I am a clinical investigator and clinically active as an associate physician in the Emergency Department (ED) and a home hospital physician in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital. I earned my Masters of Public Health at Harvard and completed my research fellowship in the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
As a physician trained in Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine, I see a gap in quality of care for older adults with serious, life-limiting illness. Most such patients are reluctant to discuss their goals for medical care despite their progressive illness. The opportunity to have in-depth conversations about values and preferences (abbreviated, the “conversation”) with any physician is scarce, and many such patients present to the ED without any advance directives. This not only complicates the care in the ED, but it is a missed opportunity to facilitate this important conversation. I am passionate about aligning the care to patient’s values and preferences at the end of life. My current research focuses on identifying older adults who would benefit from these conversations and empowering them to formulate their goals for medical care in the ED. By facilitating high-quality conversations to understand patient’s values and preferences, I will achieve this goal, so that every patient with serious illness will receive the type of care that he/she deserves.