AAHPM reached out to the 2024 Emerging Leaders to gain insight into what motivated them to pursue leadership positions and what they find more fulfilling in their experiences. Katie Jones, PhD ACHPN CARN-AP has been recognized as one of the exceptional individuals chosen as a 2024 AAHPM Emerging Leader in Hospice and Palliative Care.
Who has most influenced your work and how have they shaped your contributions?
Past and present mentors, patients, and families have heavily influenced my work. Several of my early mentors at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, VA Boston, and Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care laid a strong foundation for my clinical and research interests. These early mentors taught me the importance of attention to pain and psychological suffering as key components of caring for people with serious illness. They also instilled the importance of being true to my role as a nurse, following my passion, and being bold to push boundaries. My more recent mentors, Jessica Merlin, Devon Check, Amy Linsky, Salimah Meghani, and others has been critical influences in helping me hone my craft by pushing me to ask hard research questions, staying methodologically rigorous, and creating a brand that I am proud of that includes writing, speaking, and clinical innovation.
What is the significance to you of being recognized as a “Emerging Leader” in Hospice and Palliative Medicine?
I am so grateful to be recognized by my peers and the hospice and palliative care community. To learn that I am shaping practice, leading change, and inspiring others makes all the hard work worth it.
What is your aspiration for the evolution of hospice and Palliative Medicine?
My greatest hope is that hospice and palliative care can continue to grow the needs of people with serious illness, including people who may be left behind with our present model, such as those with substance use disorder. As a researcher, my questions stem from knowledge and skills that I wish I had five years ago or hope to acquire in the next five years. As such, I hope to expand the knowledge and skills surrounding chronic pain management in people with serious illness, further promote health equity in serious illness, and expand clinical delivery and policies governing substance use disorders to enable more integrated research and knowledge development.
Learn more about the AAHPM 2024 Emerging Leaders in Hospice and Palliative Care and view a full list of all current and past Emerging Leaders.