Jennifer Needle

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Credentials

MD, MPH

Bio

Jennifer Needle is an Associate Professor of Pediatric Critical Care and Bioethics at the University of Minnesota Medical School. She earned her MD from Howard University in Washington DC, and a Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology from Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. Dr. Needle completed her residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and fellowship in Pediatric Critical Care at the University Hospitals of Cleveland/Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. She completed her fellowship in Biomedical Ethics at the Center for Ethics in Health Care at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon.
Dr. Needle joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota in 2013 after six years as an Assistant Professor for the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Critical Care, at Oregon Health & Science University. She is board certified by the American Board of Pediatrics in Critical Care and the American Board of Pediatrics. Her academic work focuses on palliative and end-of-life care communication in critical illness. She has been a PI or co-I on grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society studying Adolescent and Young Adult Advance Care Planning in Cancer and Bone Marrow Transplant. Her work has been published in Critical Care Medicine, Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, Palliative Medicine, and The Journal of Clinical Ethics.

Research Summary

Dr. Needle's research focuses on adolescent and young adult (AYA) advance care planning (ACP) for patients with cancer. She is funded by the American Cancer Society, the Children's Cancer Research Fund, and the National Institute on Nursing Research (NIH). Dr. Needle is utilizing the FACE (Family Centered Advance Care Planning) intervention in patients with cancer and in patients undergoing bone marrow transplants. The goals are to 1) improve congruence between patients and their surrogates in goals of care, 2) assess the impact of the intervention on patient-caregiver-health care provider communication, and 3) to determine the role of AYA ACP on provider moral distress related to end-of-life care.