J. Randall Curtis, MD, MPH

Professor
Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
Section Head, Harborview Medical Center
Director, Harborview/University of Washington End-of-life Care Research Program

Education and Training

B.A. in Biochemistry, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, 1984.

M.D., Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 1988.

Residency in Internal Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 1991.

Chief Medical Resident, Seattle Veterans Administration Medical Center, University of Washington Affiliated Hospitals, Seattle, WA, 1992.

Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 1994.

M.P.H. in Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 1994.

Fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 1997.

Research Interests

The overall research objectives are: 1) to improve the quality of end-of-life care for persons with terminal or chronic diseases such as end-stage COPD, AIDS, or cancer; 2) to improve patient-clinician communication about end-of-life care; and 3) to integrate palliative care and critical care in the ICU setting.

The hypotheses of this research are as follows: 1) the quality of end-of-life care and the quality of dying can be measured with questionnaires administered to patients, family members, and health care workers; 2) reliable and valid measurement of the quality of care and the quality of dying will allow researchers to develop and evaluate interventions to improve care for the dying; 3) improving the quality of patient-clinician communication about end-of-life care will improve the quality of care at the end of life; 4) system-level changes to integrate palliative care into the ICU can improve the quality of care for patients and their families as well as job satisfaction for ICU clinicians.

This research program is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, including the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the National Institute of Nursing Research, and the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality, as well as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Open Society Institute Project on Death in America, and the Greenwall Foundation.

Additional information can be obtained by visiting the End of Life Care Research Program website.

Representative Publications

Curtis JR, Engelberg RA, Wenrich MD, Shannon SE, Treece PD, Rubenfeld GD. Missed opportunities during family conferences about end-of-life care in the intensive care unit. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 2005; 171:844-849.

Curtis JR, Engelberg RA, Young JP, Vig EK, Reinke LF, Wenrich MD, McGrath B, McCown E, Back AL. An approach to understanding the interaction of hope and desire for explicit prognostic information among individuals with severe COPD or advanced cancer. Journal of Palliative Medicine 2008; 11:610-620.

Curtis JR, Treece PD, Nielsen EL, Downey L, Shannon SE, Braungardt T, Owens D, Steinberg KP, Engelberg RA. Integrating palliative and critical care: Evaluation of a quality improvement intervention. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 2008; 178:269-275.

Gerstel E, Engelberg RA, Koepsell K, Curtis JR. Duration of withdrawal of life support in the ICU and association with family satisfaction. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 2008; 178:798-804.

Ehlenbach WJ, Barnato AE, Curtis JR, Kreuter W, Koepsell TD, Deyo RA, Stapleton RD. The epidemiology of in-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation in older adults: 1992-2995. New England Journal of Medicine 2009; 361:22-31.

 

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