Most of us think of advance care planning as simply filling out a form designating someone to make health care decisions when we can’t and expressing our general wishes about the decisions we hope they’ll make on our behalf.
But for Jessica Colburn, who in 2019 was named the Mary Gallo CIM Scholar to support her innovative work in geriatric medicine, advance care planning is so much more: a unique opportunity to deepen the dialogue between aging patients and their primary care providers.
“I like to think of it as part of a continuum of thinking,” she says. “What is important to me in my health care? How am I making choices with my primary care provider about my health care? And, ultimately, if I couldn’t speak for myself, who would I want to make those choices for me?”
“What is important to me in my health care? How am I making choices with my primary care provider about my health care? And, ultimately, if I couldn’t speak for myself, who would I want to make those choices for me?” Jessica Colburn
An associate professor of medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, Colburn came to Hopkins as a trainee in 2005 and joined the faculty in 2011 because “geriatrics was embedded in the curriculum and the fellowship, and because there was such a strong focus, led by David Hellmann, on the importance of knowing your patients as people,” she says.
It’s a focus that has always informed Colburn’s work as a clinician and educator, and it is essential to her research into issues like advance care planning. Most recently, she helped lead a clinical trial that examined the process of initiating the advance care planning conversation.
“It’s a difficult conversation for many patients to have,” she says, “and its success depends on a relationship developed over time, on primary care providers and teams really knowing their patients and understanding not only their health care needs, but their personal values and health care priorities.”
As director of the Johns Hopkins Geriatrics Fellowship program and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Topics in Geriatric Medicine course, Colburn mentors medical students, residents and fellows, and has won multiple excellence in teaching awards. And as director of the federally funded Johns Hopkins Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program, she has worked for years educating and collaborating with primary care providers in the larger Baltimore community who serve older adults.
“I get to do a lot of wonderful things as a program director,” Colburn says. “But Mrs. Gallo’s investment in me and my career has given me the luxury of protected time to study the effectiveness of the things I do. It’s been an incredible opportunity.”
