Pauline W. Chen (born 1964), is a Taiwanese American

surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...

, author, and ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' columnist. She is known for her 2007 book '' Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality'' as well as her online column "Doctor and Patient". She is also the recipient of numerous awards including the UCLA Outstanding Physician of the Year Award in 1999 and the George Longstreth Humanness Award at Yale for most exemplifying empathy, kindness, and care in an age of advancing technology. Her parents are immigrants from Taiwan.

Education and training

Chen graduated from The Loomis Chaffee School, then attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and the Feinberg School of Medicine at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

. She completed her general surgical training at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, the

National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...

, and

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. She was appointed faculty at UCLA, specializing in liver and kidney transplants and the treatment of cancer.

View on end-of-life care

Through her practice as a transplant surgeon and her experiences of dealing with terminally ill patients, Dr. Chen came to understand that, commonly, doctors consider a patient's death as a sign of imperfect care and thus a personal failure. And doctors hate to fail. Doctors strive to combat their patients’ sicknesses, but if the battle starts to become a losing one then doctors do not prepare their patients for inevitable death. Instead, the battle for life and denial of death continues with the frequent result that many patients die in a hospital's Intensive Care Unit while undergoing painful treatment rather than at home with pain-management and in peace. Dr. Chen wants to change this practice.

References

External links

Doctor and Patient
- Pauline Chen's column
Final Exam
- excerpt from Pauline Chen's book

- Chinese American Medical Association {{DEFAULTSORT:Chen, Pauline 1964 births Living people 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers American people of Taiwanese descent American surgeons American women columnists American women journalists of Asian descent American women non-fiction writers American women physicians American women writers of Chinese descent Feinberg School of Medicine alumni Harvard University alumni Loomis Chaffee School alumni The New York Times columnists Women surgeons