Emily Chai MD

Dr. Emily Chai is currently an Associate Professor and the Vice-Chair of Inpatient Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine in the Dept of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine. She started her medical career as the director of the Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute where she increased the size of the palliative care consultation to over 2400/year, expanded the number of palliative care disciplines from 3 to 8, and extended the clinical palliative care experience to include not only Palliative Care fellows but also fellows in Geriatrics, Oncology, Anesthesia Pain, Surgical Oncology and residents in Emergency medicine.

She then established the first Palliative care unit (PCU) in Manhattan and led the clinical service to both a Joint Commission’s Advanced Certification in Palliative Care without citations and a Circle of Life Award from AMA. In her current role as the Vice-Chair of Inpatient Geriatrics and Palliative Care services, she continues to create models to bring palliative care to patients and their families earlier in their disease trajectory across the Mount Sinai Health System while concurrently developing a geriatric surgical co-management model that she hopes will not only provide better care for older adults but also decrease health care utilization. Dr. Chai has received numerous recognitions and has published extensively on topics of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine.