Dr. Jackson is the Blum Family Endowed Chair in Palliative Care and the Chief of the Division of Palliative Care and Geriatric Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor in the Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School. She also serves as the Co-Director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care. She was the founding Director for the Harvard Palliative Medicine Fellowship. She completed residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine at The Cambridge Hospital, Harvard Medical School. She pursued training in research methods through the Harvard General Medicine Fellowship and completed a Master's in Public Health at The Harvard School of Public Health. She completed training in palliative care at The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Dr. Jackson is the Palliative Care lead investigator and mentor on numerous studies funded through NIH, NCI, and PCORI investigating the effect of early, integrated palliative care for patients with advanced cancer. In 2019, she was the recipient of the prestigious Harvard Medical School A. Clifford Barger mentoring award. She is the co-author of the book Living with Cancer: A step by step guide to coping medically and emotionally with a serious diagnosis, published by Johns Hopkins University Press and What's in the syringe? Principles of early Integrated Palliative Care published by Oxford University Press. Nationally she has served as a member of the Board and secretary and is currently the president for the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.
Departments, Centers, & Programs:
Clinical Interests:
Treats:
Mass General Medicine: Inpatient Palliative Care
55 Fruit St.
Boston, MA 02114
Phone: 617-724-9197
Newton-Wellesley Hospital
2014 Washington St.
Newton, MA 02462
Phone: 617-243-6000
Medical Education
American Board Certifications
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Early Integrated Outpatient Palliative Care: I developed the embedded outpatient palliative care clinic in the Cancer Center at MGH. From the inception of the clinic, I have worked with Dr. Temel as the primary palliative care lead investigator in all of our early intervention work. Early in the course of our work, we conducted a pilot study that revealed that palliative care could be successfully integrated into the Cancer Center for patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. We developed the subsequent randomized study of early intervention palliative care which demonstrated that patients who received early palliative care had improved quality of life, were less likely to be depressed, and prolonged survival that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. We have continued to work to understand the aspects of palliative care that are associated with these outcomes and are working to design interventions that incorporate these palliative care approaches for oncologists. We are also testing these approaches in multi-center trials as well as other clinical settings such as bone marrow transplant.
Palliative Care Communication Education: I have worked to describe the early intervention palliative care communication approaches as these have not previously been well described in the literature. Additionally I have worked to describe the communication education approaches including the use of role play in teaching communication skills. Finally, I have developed and delivered a communication curriculum for physicians to deliver prognostic information. This work has been the basis for communication education for our multi-center trials.
Selected Publications
Jackson V, Mack J, Matsuyama R, Lakoma M, Sullivan A, Arnold R, Weeks J, Block S. A qualitative study of oncologists’ approaches to end of life care. J Palliat Med. 2008 Jul;11(6):893-906.
Temel JS, Greer JA, Muzikansky A, Gallagher ER, Admane S, Jackson VA, Dahlin CM, Blinderman CD, Jacobsen J, Pirl WF, Billings, JA, Lynch, TJ. Early palliative care for patients with metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer. N Engl J Med 2010 Aug 19; 363(8): 733-742.
Jackson, VA, Back AL. Teaching communication skills using role-play: an experience-based guide for educators. J Palliat Med. 2011 June;14(6):775-80.
Jackson VA, Jacobsen J, Greer JA, Pirl WF, Temel JS, Back AL. The Cultivation of Prognostic Awareness through the Provision of Early Palliative Care in the Ambulatory Setting: A Communication Guide. J Palliat Med 2013 Aug 16 (8) 894-900.
Jacobsen J, Whitlock SN, Lee H, Lindvall C, Jackson V. Teaching Colleagues How to Discuss Prognosis as Part of a Hospital-wide Quality Improvement Project: The Positive Impact of a 90-Minute Workshop. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2015 Feb 7.
