Gail D'Onofrio, MD, MS

Gail D’Onofrio, MD, MS is the Albert E. Kent Professor of Emergency Medicine and was the Inaugural Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine (2009-2021) and Physician-in Chief of Emergency Services at Yale New Haven Hospital EDs with an annual census of approximately 180,000 patients. She is also Professor in the School of Public Health in the Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, and Professor of Internal Medicine, Core Faculty in Addiction) and is boarded in emergency and addiction medicine. 

Internationally known for her work in alcohol and other substance use disorders (SUDs) as well as her research on gender variations in women with ischemic heart disease, Dr. D’Onofrio has extensive experience as a leader, researcher, mentor and educator. Her work (JAMA, 2015) demonstrating that ED-initiated buprenorphine increases engagement in addiction treatment for individuals with OUD, has changed clinical practice, receiving multiple science awards, including awards from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, the Clinical Research Forum and the R. Brinkley Smithers and Distinguished Scientist Award by the American Society of Addiction Medicine (2021), ACEP's Innovation & Excellence in Behavioral Health & Addiction Medicine Award (2022) and Boston University Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient (2022).

Dr. D’Onofrio is an independent NIH-funded physician-scientist with over two decades of experience designing and implementing clinical trials in the ED setting related to alcohol and drug use, most notably the initiation of buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, that has changed clinical practice.  She is a MPI of the  NIDA Clinical Trials Network (CTN) New England Consortium Node, and currently Lead Investigator on several multisite trials testing implementation of ED-initiated buprenorphine and effectiveness of different formulations and dosing of buprenorphine. She is also a Hub MPI of the the NHLBI-NINDS funded SIREN network (Yale-METRO), covering NYC and Northeast sites, that conducts large phase III clinical trials in emergency and critical care.  

Dr. D’Onofrio has a long track record of mentoring physician scientists in independent research careers. She is the PI of a NIDA K12 establishing the Yale Drug Use, Addiction and HIV Research Scholars (Yale-DAHRS) program, a Mentored Career Development Program with focused training in prevention and treatment of drug use, addiction, and HIV in general medical settings with scholars in Medicine, Emergency Medicine (EM), Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Pulmonary Critical Care; and she has mentored numerous faculty, at Yale and beyond that have become NIH funded investigators.  She has received several awards which reflect her dedication to mentorship and nurturing careers of junior investigators, including Excellence in Mentoring award from the Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse (AMERSA 2008), Advancing Women in Emergency Medicine award from the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM 2016) and the Academy for Women in Academic Emergency Medicine (AWAEM) Outstanding Department Award for the advancement of women (SAEM 2018) and the Distinguished Chair Award from the Association of Academic Chairs in Emergency Medicine (2022)

Dr. D’Onofrio is a founding Board member of the Board of Addiction Medicine recognized by ABMS as a Specialty, Sub-specialty.  An advocate for individuals with SUD, she is one of the architects of Connecticut Governor’s Strategic Plan to Reduce Opioid Deaths, working with multiple agencies regionally and nationally to change policies and introduce interventions to combat the opioid crisis. She served on the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse for the National Institutes of Health and is currently a member of the NIH HEAL Initiative Multi-Disciplinary Working Group.