Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Contact, publication, and social network information about Harvard faculty and fellows.

James Aaron Tulsky, M.D.

Title
Institution
Department
Address
Phone
Profile Picture

Overview
Dr. James Tulsky is Poorvu Jaffe Chair, Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Chief, Division of Palliative Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and Professor of Medicine and Co-Director, Center for Palliative Care, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Tulsky attended Cornell University as an undergraduate, completed his medical degree at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, and received his internal medicine training at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He continued at UCSF as chief medical resident and subsequently as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. From 1993-2015 he was on faculty at Duke University where he was last Professor of Medicine and Nursing and Chief, Duke Palliative Care. He is the recipient of the 2002 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (the highest national award given by the White House Office of Science and Technology for early career investigators), the 2006 Award for Research Excellence from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, the 2013 George L. Engel Award from the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare for “outstanding research contributing to the theory, practice and teaching of effective healthcare communication and related skills,” and the 2014 American Cancer Society Pathfinder in Palliative Care award. In 2017, he was named a named a Hospice and Palliative Medicine Visionary by AAHPM. He serves as Board Chair of the Greenwall Foundation, Chair of the National Palliative Care Research Center Scientific Advisory Council, and from 2016-22 was Co-Chair of the Roundtable on Quality Care in Serious Illness of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.

Dr. Tulsky has a longstanding interest in doctor-patient communication and quality of life at the end of life, and has published widely in these areas. His current research focuses on the evaluation and enhancement of communication between oncologists and patients with advanced cancer, identification of clinical, psychosocial and spiritual trajectories of patients at the end of life, development of self-management interventions for patients with life-limiting illness, and evaluating the role of palliative care in congestive heart failure. He is a Founding Director of VitalTalk (www.vitaltalk.org), a non-profit devoted to communication skills teaching for clinicians working with seriously ill patients.

Research
The research activities and funding listed below are automatically derived from NIH ExPORTER and other sources, which might result in incorrect or missing items. Faculty can login to make corrections and additions.
  1. UH3AG060626 (TULSKY, JAMES A. ;VOLANDES, ANGELO) Jul 1, 2018 - Jun 30, 2024
    NIH
    Improving Advance Care Planning in Oncology: A Pragmatic, Cluster-Randomized Trial Integrating Patient Videos and Clinician Communication Training
    Role: Principal Investigator
  2. UG3AG060626 (TULSKY, JAMES A.) Jul 1, 2018 - Jun 30, 2019
    NIH
    Improving Advance Care Planning in Oncology: A Pragmatic, Cluster-Randomized Trial Integrating Patient Videos and Clinician Communication Training
    Role: Principal Investigator
  3. R01NR013428 (ROGERS, JOSEPH G.) Sep 27, 2011 - Jul 31, 2016
    NIH
    Palliative Care in Heart Failure (PAL-HF)
    Role: Co-Principal Investigator
  4. P01NR010948 (TULSKY, JAMES A.) Sep 23, 2008 - Dec 31, 2014
    NIH
    Self-Management Interventions in Life-Limiting Illness
    Role: Principal Investigator
  5. R01NR008249 (TULSKY, JAMES AARON) Aug 1, 2003 - Apr 30, 2010
    NIH
    Trajectories of Serious Illness: Patients and Caregivers
    Role: Principal Investigator

Featured Content

Bibliographic
Publications listed below are automatically derived from MEDLINE/PubMed and other sources, which might result in incorrect or missing publications. Faculty can login to make corrections and additions.
Newest   |   Oldest   |   Most Cited   |   Most Discussed   |   Timeline   |   Field Summary   |   Plain Text
PMC Citations indicate the number of times the publication was cited by articles in PubMed Central, and the Altmetric score represents citations in news articles and social media. (Note that publications are often cited in additional ways that are not shown here.) Fields are based on how the National Library of Medicine (NLM) classifies the publication's journal and might not represent the specific topic of the publication. Translation tags are based on the publication type and the MeSH terms NLM assigns to the publication. Some publications (especially newer ones and publications not in PubMed) might not yet be assigned Field or Translation tags.) Click a Field or Translation tag to filter the publications.
Updating...
This operation might take several minutes to complete. Please do not close your browser.
Local representatives can answer questions about the Profiles website or help with editing a profile or issues with profile data. For assistance with this profile: HMS/HSDM faculty should contact contactcatalyst.harvard.edu. For faculty or fellow appointment updates and changes, please ask your appointing department to contact HMS. For fellow personal and demographic information, contact HMS Human Resources at human_resourceshms.harvard.edu. For faculty personal and demographic information, contact HMS Office for Faculty Affairs at facappthms.harvard.edu.
Tulsky's Networks
Click the
Explore
buttons for more information and interactive visualizations!
Concepts (549)
Explore
_
Co-Authors (120)
Explore
_
Similar People (60)
Explore
_
Same Department 
Explore
_
Funded by the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences through its Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program, grant number UL1TR002541.