Vicki Jackson, MD, MPH, is the Chair of the Department of Medicine and John Wade Professor at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, and Physician-in-Chief at Boston Medical Center. A nationally recognized leader in palliative care, Dr. Jackson brings over two decades of experience in academic medicine, clinical leadership, and mentorship. Prior to her appointment at Boston University, she held the Blum Family Endowed Chair in Palliative Care and served as Chief of the Division of Palliative Care and Geriatric Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. She was also a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Co-Director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care, and the founding Director of the Harvard Palliative Medicine Fellowship.

Dr. Jackson completed her residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine at The Cambridge Hospital, Harvard Medical School, followed by advanced training in research methods through the Harvard General Medicine Fellowship and a Master’s in Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her clinical training in palliative care was completed at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is a co-investigator and mentor on multiple federally funded studies focused on early, integrated palliative care for patients with advanced cancer. In 2019, she received the prestigious A. Clifford Barger Mentoring Award from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Jackson is the co-author of Living with Cancer: A Step-by-Step Guide to Coping Medically and Emotionally with a Serious Diagnosis (Johns Hopkins University Press) and What’s in the Syringe? Principles of Early Integrated Palliative Care (Oxford University Press, 2022). Nationally, she has served as the president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.