Jason Karlawish

Jason Karlawish, MD is a Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine. He is a physician and writer. He cares for patients at the Penn Memory Center, which he co-directs, and studies and writes about issues at the intersections of bioethics, aging, and the neurosciences. His essays have appeared in Forbes, KevinMD, The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, STAT, and The Washington Post.

Dr. Karlawish has investigated the development of Alzheimer’s Disease treatments and diagnostics, biomarker-based concepts of disease, informed consent, quality of life, research and treatment decision making, and voting by people with cognitive impairment and residents of long-term care facilities. In a widely read essay in the Journal of the American Medical Association, he introduced the concept of “desktop medicine,” a theory of medicine that recognizes how risk and its numerical representations are transforming medicine, medical care, and health. His essays on the concept of “whealthcare” have raised national awareness about the tight linkages between cognitive health and financial wealth. He has been an internationally recognized proponent of mobile polling, a method of bringing the vote to long-term care facilities that minimizes fraud and maximizes voter rights.