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Dr. Dio Kavalieratos Becomes First PhD to Win the AAHPM Early Career Investigator Award

 

On March 16th, 2019, Dr. Dio Kavalieratos, PhD, was named the 2019 winner of the Early Career Investigator Award, given by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.


According to the AAHPM, the Early Career Investigator Award “recognizes a member of AAHPM who is developing as a research leader, showing promise of making contributions to the development of a scientific foundation for practice and research, conducting or facilitating research by others that advances the field of hospice and palliative medicine, has a beginning record of scientific publications, and contributes to the AAHPM community at large.”


Dr. Kavalieratos is the first non-physician to receive this award, having earned a PhD in Health Policy & Management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2012. According to Dr. Kavalieratos, the decision to recognize a non-physician with this award “sends a signal that the field of hospice and palliative medicine welcomes non-physicians in research.”


“The award recognizes investigators who are doing innovative work in the field of palliative care and hospice medicine — whose work is thought to move the field forward,” Dr. Kavalieratos says.


The Early Career Investigator Award was first given by the AAHPM in 2016, and its inaugural winner was Dr. Yael Schenker, MD, MAS. Dr. Schenker is currently the Director of Palliative Care Research and is an Associate Professor of Medicine in Section of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics here at the University of Pittsburgh.


In describing the trajectory of his work, Dr. Kavalieratos says that his research is guided by the question, “How do you redesign healthcare to better support patients and their families during their experience with life-threatening illness?” 


Dr. Kavalieratos’s body of work represents his commitment to testing ways of redesigning healthcare systems for chronic non-cancer illnesses, including heart failure and cystic fibrosis. In addition to his role as the Associate Director of Palliative Care Research, Dr. Kavalieratos is the Director of Implementation Research at the UPMC Palliative & Supportive Institute and an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Section of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics. He currently serves as the Co-Director of Palliative Care Initiatives for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.


“In palliative care, we work with patients experiencing the most sensitive, fragile moments of their lives, and traditional methods of care aren’t always applicable,” Dr. Kavalieratos explains. “We can still ask ourselves, ‘where are the gaps in evidence for palliative care research?’”


To learn more about Dr. Kavalieratos’s work, read his 2016 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “Association Between Palliative Care and Patient and Caregiver Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.”


Congratulations to Dr. Kavalieratos for this well-deserved recognition of his innovative research in palliative care!

April 23rd, 2019