Kari Leigh Esbensen, MD

Board certified in internal medicine and hospice and palliative medicine, Kari Esbensen, MD, PhD, is a medical oncology hospitalist at Emory University Hospital Midtown and Winship Cancer Institute at Emory Midtown. Prior to this role, she practiced as an academic hospitalist, inpatient palliative medicine consultant and inpatient hospice medical director for many years. Dr. Esbensen is also a bioethicist and philosopher. She serves as a clinical ethics consultant and Ethics Committee member at Emory University Hospital Midtown and Emory University Hospital, and she is a senior faculty fellow of the Emory Center for Ethics, where she teaches courses in the Master of Arts in Bioethics program.

Dr. Esbensen's non-clinical time is spent teaching and writing about clinical ethics, palliative care and communication with patients and families. She particularly enjoys opening learners' eyes to the many possibilities for providing healing for patients, even when cure is no longer possible. Her special interests include ethical issues pertaining to end-of-life care and decision-making; integrating patients' preferences, values and spirituality into care; and promoting family-centered care. She also has expertise in theories of distributive justice regarding the allocation of scarce health care resources.