Michael Pottash, MD, MPH is a physician, expert in palliative care and clinical ethics, and program director of the Medstar Washington Hospital Center Interprofessional Palliative Care Fellowship Program.
Dr. Pottash studied public health, then medicine in Israel at the Technion, did his residency in internal medicine with a primary care track (with a focus on psychosocial medicine), and completed fellowships in palliative care and clinical ethics. Those experiences have provided him with a critical understanding of the medical practice: of the systemic and social justice issues underlying the social determinants of health, the overreach of modern medicine, the speed with which medical technologies are developed, how medical knowledge is acquired and used, and the failings in communicating with patients and families in a compassionate way.
He started teaching early in his career, when he worked for two years as substitute teacher for school-aged students, from primary school to high school. As associate professor of clinical medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine, he has taught subjects that include The Problem of Suffering, Ethics of Research with Human Subjects and Medicine, Law, and Ethics at the End of Life. His classes challenge the students’ preconceived notions about medicine and health care, creating a space for engaging and meaningful conversations.
Dr. Pottash is the author of the Better healthcare blog, and has been a contributor of the Pallimed blog and KevinMD. His research on palliative care, clinical ethics and communication appears in various leading medical journals.
“A Pilot Study to Understand the Role of Medical Humanities in Medical Education”
September 26th, 2022
Clark Pitcher, Arya Prasad, Daniel Marchalik, Hunter Groninger, Lakshmi Krishnan and Michael Pottash study the perception of the students enrolled in the Georgetown University Medical Humanities Initiative of the benefits of a medical humanities curriculum.…
“The Limits of Advance Care Planning”, Dr. Michael Pottash’s Perspective on Pallimed
November 22nd, 2021
In this piece published on the Pallimed blog, Michael Pottash responds to the case against advance care planning, arguing that a better framework for thinking about these future-oriented conversations is training clinicians to have Serious Illness Conversations with their patients before they end up in the final stage or in intensive care.…
The Good Life at the End of Life
September 20th, 2021
Discussion on medical and spiritual views on the meaning of the good life during the last stages of life. Speaking to the issue were Devan Stahl (Bioethics and Religion, Baylor University) and Michael Pottash (Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Georgetown University).…
“Palliative Care Consultation and Effect on Length of Stay in a Tertiary-Level Neurological Intensive Care Unit”
August 19th, 2020
The team of researchers that includes Dr. Michael Pottash and Dr. Hunter Groninger investigated the characteristics and impact of palliative care consultation for patients in a neurological intensive care unit (ICU) at a large tertiary-care hospital.…
“Practicing Serious Illness Conversations in Graduate Medical Education”
June 3rd, 2020
Dr. Michael Pottash and his co-authors address the lack of routine practice opportunities in medical training to have a serious illness conversation, including discussing patients’ expectations, concerns, and preferences regarding an advancing illness. By testing incorporating a serious illness conversation into routine trainee practice, they found that trainees found it to be an important addition to their routine practice. Patients found the conversation to be important, reassuring, and of better quality than their usual visits.…
“We Are All Living with Serious Illness Now”, Dr. Michael Pottash and Dr. Anita Hannig’s Reflections on Living with Serious Illness in the Pandemic
April 7th, 2020
Dr. Michael Pottash and Anita Hannig provide some insights, from working with patients living with serious illness, to think about what it means to face a global health crisis.…
“Comfort Care, Whatever Does That Mean?”, Dr. Michael Pottash’s Article Review on Pallimed
May 4th, 2019
Dr. Michael Pottash argues that any term to describe dying care will always be problematic, and, thus, we should get rid of it altogether.…
Ethicslab Podcast: Psychiatric Disability and Life Threatening Non-Adherence, featuring Dr. Carol Taylor, Dr. Michael Pottash, Dr. Laura Guidry-Grimes and Dr. Sarah Kleinfeld
December 27th, 2018
In the Ethicslab podcast, Dr. Carol Taylor, Dr. Michael Pottash, Dr. Laura Guidry-Grimes and Dr. Sarah Kleinfeld reflect on the stories of patients with psychiatric disability, who face end-of-life situations after prolonged non-adherence to a medical treatment plan. The guests offer their ethical reflections on the challenges, naming the components of complexity, and what is important for ethics committee members to pay attention to in patient stories like these.…
“Advance Directive-ish”, Dr. Michael Pottash Writes on the Better Healthcare Blog
October 27th, 2018
Dr. Michael Pottash writes about problems with advance directives, and provides specific guidelines for doctors, patients and families to take into account, for them to be useful.…
“Post-Transplantation Palliative Care: Misconceptions and Disincentives”
January 15th, 2018
Dr. Michael Pottash argues for the value of providing palliative care to transplant recipients, which faces two major barriers: misconceptions about the goals of palliative care, and the quality care outcome measures that have the unintended consequence of disincentivizing its routine use.…
Dr. Michael Pottash Writes about Clinicians’ Word Choices on the Better Healthcare Blog
April 22nd, 2017
Dr. Michael Pottash writes about the use of nonspecific words amongst clinicians when communicating prognosis to patients, families and other medical providers, and suggests that it would be clearer if healthcare professionals simply used explicit time frames in documentation and in consultation with patients when attempting to convey a prognosis.…
“Poor Prognostication: Hidden Meanings in Word Choices”
April 21st, 2017
The absence of a standardised language to express prognostic information can be a barrier for providing realistic information to patients and their families. The team of researchers that includes Dr. Michael Pottash and Dr. Hunter Groninger surveyed a random sample of internal medicine attending physicians and residents to better determine perception of word choice related to documentation of patient prognosis and hospice eligibility in the medical record.…
