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Kathryn Hawk, MD, MHS

she/her/hers
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology (Chronic Disease)
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About

Titles

Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology (Chronic Disease)

Biography

Kathryn Hawk, MD, MHS is an attending physician in the Yale New Haven Hospital Emergency Department and an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, the Yale School of Public Health and the Program in Addiction Medicine. She was a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) K12 sponsored Drug use, Addiction and HIV Research (DAHRS) Scholar, and is board certified in emergency and addiction medicine. She completed her residency training and research fellowship in the Yale University Department of Emergency Medicine. Her research primarily focuses on the design, testing and implementation of evidence based-care for ED patients with substance use disorders, with an emphasis on initiating medications for opioid and alcohol use disorder in the ED and maximizing effective linkage to ongoing treatment using innovative strategies. Her research on quality improvement and reducing opioid-associated mortality through data linkages, implementation-facilitation ED-initiated buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, initiating treatment for alcohol use disorder in the ED and the dissemination of evidence-based best practices for care of patients with addiction has been funded by NIDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Emergency Medicine Foundation (EMF), Foundation for Opioid Response (FORE), and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

Appointments

Other Departments & Organizations

Education & Training

MHS
Yale University College of Medicine (2016)
Residency
Yale-New Haven Hospital (2014)
MD
Drexel University College of Medicine (2010)

Research

Overview

Kathryn Hawk, MD, MHS is an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and an attending physician in the Yale New Haven Hospital Emergency Department. She is a former NIDA sponsored Drug use, Addiction and HIV Research (DAHRS) Scholar, and is board certified in emergency and addiction medicine. She completed her residency training and research fellowship in the Yale University Department of Emergency Medicine. Her research primarily focuses on reducing opioid-associated morbidity and mortality in high risk populations, with an emphasis on opioid overdose prevention, harm reduction and linkage to treatment for ED patients with opioid use disorder. Her research has been supported by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the NIDA Clinical Trials Network, Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Emergency Medicine Foundation (EMF), Foundation for Opioid Response (FORE), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and includes reducing opioid-associated mortality through data linkages, implementation-facilitation of ED initiation buprenorphine, naloxone distribution, ED patient experience and reported outcomes, and dissemination of evidence-based best practices for care of patients with addiction.

Medical Research Interests

Addiction Medicine; Alcohol-Related Disorders; Bioethics; Buprenorphine; Harm Reduction; Implementation Science; Opiate Overdose; Opioid-Related Disorders

Public Health Interests

Substance Use, Addiction; Health Equity, Disparities, Social Determinants and Justice; Qualitative Methods

Research at a Glance

Yale Co-Authors

Frequent collaborators of Kathryn Hawk's published research.

Publications

Featured Publications

Academic Achievements & Community Involvement

  • activity

    Yale New Haven Hospital Ethics Committee

  • activity

    American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Emergency Quality Network Opioid Initiative

  • activity

    ACEP Opioid Advisory Network

  • honor

    Early Career Research Award

  • honor

    25 under 45 Influencers in Emergency Medicine

Clinical Care

Overview

Kathryn Hawk, MD, MHS is an emergency room physician with a specialty in addiction, overdose prevention and ED linkage to care. She arrived at Yale Medicine in 2010 as a resident and stayed on as a full-time faculty member, drawn by Yale’s emergency department’s focus on public health and addiction.

During her first year of medical school as the opioid crisis was significantly worsening, Dr. Hawk volunteered at Prevention Point Philadelphia’s Streetside Clinic, a free mobile health clinic in that traveled in tandem with the needle exchange van. The patients she saw there shaped her clinical and research interests. “The fact that during my training, I saw what was happening in our community, in our ED, and in the news, it became very clear to me what I should focus my efforts on,” she says.

Today, Dr. Hawk continues her interest in addiction medicine by conducting clinical research on opioid use disorders and overdose prevention. She looks at ways to implement overdose prevention interventions and emergency department-initiated buprenorphine both at Yale and in hospitals around the country. “I love interacting with patients on an individual one-on-one level but feel even more fortunate that I get to help people at a broader public health level. The combination is incredibly rewarding,” she says.

As an emergency room physician, Dr. Hawk sees a variety of patients, conditions and procedures every day. “Over a couple of minutes, you could go from talking about the goals of care with a family of an elderly patient, to discussing available treatments for substance use disorders, to sitting down with an adolescent and talking to them about safe sex,” she says. As a result, a big part of her job is understanding why a patient is in the emergency room department to begin with, and how she can help. To do this, Dr. Hawk asks lots of questions: “Sometimes I flat out ask them, sometimes I do some reflective listening and repeat what they’ve said and ask them how I can help,” she says. Dr. Hawk believes that the emergency room is often the first step to getting a patient connected to long-term resources, and these deeper conversations allow her to understand the root cause of why a patient came to the ED on that particular day and what they need moving forward.

Clinical Specialties

Emergency Medicine; Addiction Medicine

Board Certifications

  • Addiction Medicine

    Certification Organization
    AB of Preventive Medicine
    Original Certification Date
    2018
  • Emergency Medicine

    Certification Organization
    AB of Emergency Medicine
    Original Certification Date
    2016

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