Jubanyik Receives Distinguished Clinical Career Award

Karen Jubanyik, MD, is one of five recipients of the 2022 Yale Medicine Distinguished Clinical Career Award. The award was created in 2020 to recognize and honor the careers of physicians marked by significant accomplishments, exemplary dedication, and important contributions in advancing Yale Medicine, the overall medical profession, and the community.

Dr. Jubanyik, associate professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, is deeply committed to teaching and mentoring students, ensuring the highest quality patient care, and advocating for just and equal treatment for all patients. A superb clinician, Dr. Jubanyik works in the emergency departments at Yale New Haven Hospital and Shoreline Medical Center, where her specific area of expertise is palliative care and end-of-life care. Dr. Jubanyik has been instrumental in the integration of palliative care teaching to residents and medical students. Her strong commitment to the belief that effective palliative care helps prevent and relieve suffering uniquely positions her to instruct physicians on the conduct and importance of end-of-life discussions with their patients. She is actively involved in emergency medicine research with a focus on disparities in access to palliative care.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Jubanyik piloted a role as an embedded liaison consulting with the palliative care team on seriously ill patients with COVID or other life-threatening conditions to ensure that goals of care were assessed upon arrival to the ED. This innovation was featured at the annual Society for Academic Emergency Medicine national research meeting in May 2021. Dr. Jubanyik has written several articles and a book to educate the lay community about COVID-19 and the importance of advanced directives and palliative care.

Dr. Jubanyik is director of the Emergency Medicine Clerkship, and has played a key role in the development and expansion of the clerkship program. She is a faculty supervisor for the HAVEN Free Clinic, a student- run, primary care clinic providing free health care to the uninsured. Dr. Jubanyik is a longtime member of the Yale New Haven Hospital Ethics Committee, and also serves as a member of the Yale University Campus Resource Team, which reviews the sexual assault, stalking, and intimate partner violence policies and protocols adopted by Yale. Dr. Jubanyik is highly respected by students, residents, fellows, and peers, and has received multiple teaching prizes at Yale.