Katherine Rinaldi Courtright, MD, MSHP

Dr. Katherine (Kate) Courtright's research focuses on developing and testing innovative care delivery models to improve the value of palliative care using a precision medicine approach. Specifically, her work aims to close the gap between a growing demand for specialty palliative care services and an insufficient workforce by developing an electronic prediction model to identify patients at high risk of having unmet palliative care needs. She also leverages behavioral economic insights to improve the delivery and uptake of effective palliative care interventions among patients most likely to benefit. Dr. Courtright is a core faculty member at the Palliative and Advanced Illness Research (PAIR) Center and the Fostering Improvement in End-of-Life Decision Science (FIELDS) program at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also a member of the American Thoracic Society and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, where she serves on the Steering Committee of the Early Investigators Forum.

After graduating from Temple University School of Medicine, Dr. Courtright came to Penn where she completed a residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine, and fellowships in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine. She earned a Master’s degree in health policy research and was awarded the Lee Lusted Award from the Society for Medical Decision Making in 2015 and an Access Fund Scholarship from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine in 2017. Her research has been supported by the NIH (NHLBI and NIDDK), the National Palliative Care Research Center, and the Donaghue Foundation.

Dr. Courtright is a physician at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where she attends in the medical intensive care unit and on the palliative care consultative service.