Leslie Blackhall, MD, MTS

Dr. Leslie Blackhall is Section Head for Palliative Medicine and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Dr. Blackhall has had a career-long focus on the care of patients with life-limiting illnessess, starting her residency when she published a ground-breaking paper on medical facility in the New England Journal of Medicine. She was a program leader for a 2012 CMS Innovation Award, which integrates patient-reported outcomes into the electronic medical record in the outpatient setting as a guide to improving the quality of life, care coordination and end-of-life care planning for patients with incurable malignancies. This program has been extended sine then through extensive intramural funding, to including patients with advanced heart failure. She is the winner of the 2015 American Cancer Society Lane Adams Quality of Life Award for her work with cancer patients. Under her guidance UVA has been named a national Palliative Care Leadership Center by the Center for the Advancement of Palliative Care (CAPC).