Medical Editors

The Foundation’s Medical Editors are essential to the organization’s mission and objectives. These highly respected medical professionals marshal the scientific evidence for educational campaigns, including videos, web based programs, and print materials. Medical Editors are deeply involved in program development from start to finish, from gathering evidence to reviewing scripts, graphics, and data. Medical Editors also work with outside Clinical Advisors and the production teams at Health Dialog to produce the Shared Decision-Making programs, and review them on a regular basis.

David Arterburn, MD, MPH is Assistant Investigator at the Center for Health Studies at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Arterburn received his MD from the University of Kentucky in 1997 and completed his Internal Medicine residency and chief residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 2001. In 2003, he completed a Health Services Research and Development Fellowship at the VA Puget Sound in Seattle and received his MPH in Health Services at the University of Washington. Dr. Arterburn’s work has focused on the area of obesity health services research, with expertise in the clinical effectiveness of obesity interventions and systematic reviews. He has recently published articles on the cost of obesity, obesity pharmacotherapy, bariatric surgery, health-related quality of life assessment, and the health outcomes of obesity in the elderly. He also currently serves as a medical editor for the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, and is working with the Foundation to develop shared decision making tools in the area of weight management.

Steven J. Atlas, MD, MPH is an Associate Physician in General Medicine and Associate Director of primary care quality improvement at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on improving the quality of care for patients with low back disorders and respiratory infections. He is a National Institutes of Health funded investigator studying work-related low back pain and ways to improve patient care by better linking patients and doctors. For patients with sinus infections, he developed a survey instrument to measure the severity of symptoms and their impact.

Michael J. Barry, MD is Chief of the General Medicine Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Barry has been President of the Society for Medical Decision-Making (SMDM) and the Society of General Internal Medicine. He was the PI of the Prostate PORT-II. He is currently PI of a project comparing screening and treatment intensity and prostate cancer mortality in the Connecticut and Seattle SEER areas. He heads the Endpoints Committee for the Prostate cancer Intervention Versus Observation Trial (PIVOT). His research interests include the evaluation and treatment of prostate disease, health status measurement, technology assessment, and the use of decision aids to facilitate patients’ participation in decision-making.

Michael Bierer MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital where he has been on staff since 1988. He currently has an active primary-care clinic in internal medicine at the hospital, and is responsible for resident education related to the clinical management of drug and alcohol problems. He formerly ran the program for homeless patients at the hospital.

L. Ebony Boulware, MD, MPH is Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the School of Medicine of Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Boulware's major research interests include chronic kidney disease epidemiology and prevention, eliminating racial disparities in access to appropriate care for persons with chronic kidney disease, and identifying barriers to the delivery of appropriate care for persons with chronic kidney disease. Her current research activities focus on identifying patient and physician barriers to the receipt of guideline concordant care for patients with chronic kidney disease, identifying patient, physician, and population factors affecting the receipt of kidney transplantation, and race and gender differences in attitudes toward organ donation. Additional activities include investigating the relation of quality of life indices to outcomes in chronic kidney disease and work identifying the contribution of patient behavior to the progression and treatment of chronic disease.

Karen Carlson, MD is Director of Women's Health Associates at Massachusetts General Hospital, Assistant Professor of Medicine, and Deputy Director, Center of Excellence in Women's Health at Harvard Medical School. Her areas of interest include hysterectomy and alternative treatments for nonmalignant gynecologic conditions, ovarian cancer screening, and communication issues in the doctor-patient relationship. She was the principal investigator of the Maine Women's Health Study. Dr. Carlson received her MD from Harvard Medical School, completed residency training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and was a Henry J. Kaiser Fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is board-certified in Internal Medicine and an Associate Member of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Dr. Carlson maintains an active primary care practice.

Joann G. Elmore, MD, MPH, is Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine, Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the UW School of Public Health and Community Medicine, and Section Head of General Internal Medicine at Harborview Medical Center. Dr. Elmore received her medical degree from the Stanford University School of Medicine and completed residency training in internal medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital, with advanced training in epidemiology from the Yale School of Epidemiology and Public Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. Dr. Elmore’s clinical and scientific interests in women’s health include variability in breast cancer screening, diagnostic testing, and the evaluation of new technologies. She has co-authored a textbook on epidemiology, biostatistics, and preventive medicine. In addition, Dr. Elmore enjoys seeing patients as a primary care internist and teaching clinical medicine to students and residents.

Ralph Gonzales, MD is Associate Professor of Medicine; Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco; and serves as Associate Director of the UCSF Roadmap K12 Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Career Development Program and Co-Director of the UCSF School of Medicine Epidemiology/Evidence Based Medicine course for medical students. Dr. Gonzales conducts research on design and implementation of multidimensional intervention strategies to improve the management of acute respiratory tract infections in adults, particularly with regard to reducing overuse of antibiotics. He directed the development of the CDC-sponsored, multi-specialty task force to develop Principles of Appropriate Antibiotic Use for Acute Respiratory Tract Infections in Adults in 2001; and is co-PI on the joint VA-AHRQ-funded Improving Antibiotic Use in Acute Care Treatment (IMPAACT) Project—a national 16-site cluster-randomized trial to test different intervention strategies to improve antibiotic use in emergency departments. He also edits the annually updated book “Current Practice Guidelines in Primary Care” (McGraw-Hill/Lange).

Ethan A. Halm, MD, MPH is Associate Professor, Associate Chief, Director of Research, Division of General Internal Medicine Director, Masters of Science in Clinical Research Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Katherine E. Hartmann, MD, PhD is Deputy Director of the Institute for Medicine and Public Health at Vanderbilt University Medical Center where she also serves as Director of the AHRQ Evidence-based Practice Center, Director of Women’s Health Research at Vanderbilt, and Vice Chair for Research in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Hartmann is a reproductive and health care epidemiologist who received her medical training as well as a Master’s degree in science writing at the Johns Hopkins University. She completed residency, Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars fellowship, and doctoral training in epidemiology at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Hartmann’s research spans topics from subclinical hypothyroidism and cardiovascular disease, to risk factors for miscarriage and preterm birth. Her methodological interests include evaluation of diagnostic tests; measuring how patients and physicians use data for decision-making; and large scale clinical-translational studies of etiology and natural history of disease.

Richard Hoffman, MD is Interim Director, Cancer Prevention, University of New Mexico Cancer Research and Treatment Center, and Professor of Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

Jeffrey N. Katz, MD, MS is Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Director of Clinical Research, New England Baptist Bone and Joint Institute; Director, Robert Brigham Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Clinical Research Center, Director of Health Services Research, Multipurpose Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Jean S. Kutner, MD, MSPH is a tenured Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Colorado at Denver Health Sciences Center and is the Head of the Division of General Internal Medicine. Following residency in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Kutner completed a National Research Service Award Primary Care Fellowship and a Geriatrics Fellowship at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. She has established and directs the Population-based Palliative Care Research Network (PoPCRN), a research network of organizations that provide hospice/palliative care. Dr. Kutner is active in palliative/hospice care research, education and clinical care locally and nationally. She is recipient of Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars Program and Paul Beeson Physician Faculty Scholars in Aging Research Awards, an R01 from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, an R21 from the National Cancer Institute and provides mentorship to students, residents and faculty in end-of-life-related research. She directs the palliative care consultation service at the University of Colorado Hospital. Nationally, she is the Chair of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine College of Palliative Care and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Board of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

Carol M. Mangione, MD, MPH is a Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research in the Department of Medicine of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She is also a consultant in the RAND Health Program, and Director of the NIA-funded UCLA/Drew Resource Center for Minority Aging Research / Center for Health Improvement of Minority Elderly. Additionally she is a practicing general internist in the UCLA Medical Group’s Internal Medicine Suites where she sees patients and teaches medical residents. Dr. Mangione received her BS from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MD from the University of California, San Francisco, and her MSPH from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston. She is Co-director of the UCLA Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program, and member of the National Diabetes Quality Improvement Alliance Technical Expert Panel.

Mary McNaughton-Collins, MD, MPH is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and has a clinical practice at Massachusetts General Hospital. She has funding from the NIH to conduct research in prostate diseases. Dr. McNaughton-Collins received a bachelor's degree in Spanish from Holy Cross in 1987 and a medical degree from Dartmouth/Brown in 1991. She completed a medical residency at Boston University, followed by a fellowship in general medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. She received a MPH degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Annette O'Connor, PhD, MSCN is Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Nursing and Faculty of Medicine, Department of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Ottawa; Senior Scientist, Clinical Epidemiology at the Ottawa Health Research Institute.

Michael P. Pignone, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, Associate Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine, and Director of the UNC Center for Excellence in Chronic Illness Care. He received his medical degree and residency training in primary care internal medicine from the University of California- San Francisco. He then completed fellowship training in clinical epidemiology and health services research through the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at UNC. Dr. Pignone’s research is focused on chronic disease prevention and physician – patient communication about risk in primary care settings. His main areas of interest include heart disease prevention, colorectal cancer screening, and disease management for common chronic illnesses such as diabetes, depression, heart failure, and chronic pain.

Neil Powe, MD, MPH is Director of the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research at Johns Hopkins University and a Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine of the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University.

Karen R. Sepucha, PhD is a Senior Scientist with the Health Decision Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research interests focus on extending and refining normative and behavioral decision making theories and their applications to medical decision making. Dr. Sepucha has published several articles evaluating decision support interventions and describing a conceptual framework for promoting measurable improvements in decision quality. Her most recent work is focused on developing and evaluating decision quality measures that can be used to compare decision quality across populations of patients.

John W. Williams Jr., MD is Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at Duke University. He is co-Director for the MacArthur Initiative on Depression in Primary Care, Scientific Editor of the NC Medical Journal and a faculty member in the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care at the Durham VAMC. His research on the clinical examination, depression recognition, and methods to implement effective care models for depression have been published in major medical journals such as JAMA, BMJ and Annals of Internal Medicine. Current projects focus on the dissemination of successful care models for depression, measuring depression quality of care, improving the incorporation of evidence into clinical guidelines, and evaluating screening strategies for cognitive impairment. Dr. Williams received a Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and an Advanced Career Development Award from the VA Health Services Research Program. Dr. Williams is board certified in Internal Medicine and active in clinical practice and resident physician education.

John Wong, MD is Chief of the Division of Clinical Decision Making, Informatics and Telemedicine in the Department of Medicine at the Tufts-New England Medical Center Hospitals and the Tufts University School of Medicine. He is a Past President of the Society for Medical Decision Making and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. Dr. Wong received his medical degree from the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine. He completed his postgraduate training in internal medicine at the Tufts-New England Medical Center, and Tufts University School of Medicine; where he received a National Library of Medicine Medical Informatics fellowship in Clinical Decision Making. His research has examined public health policy and individual medical management issues using decision analysis to help patients, physicians and policy makers choose among alternative tests, treatments or policies.