Richard Leiter, MD, MA

Dr. Richard Leiter is a palliative care physician, writer, and researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He received his medical degree and an MA in Medical Humanities and Bioethics from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He completed Internal Medicine residency and Chief Residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, before matriculating to the Harvard Interprofessional Palliative Care Fellowship Program. After completing his fellowship and prior to joining the faculty, Dr. Leiter completed the DFCI Research Fellowship in Supportive Oncology. He currently serves as the Director of the Inpatient Palliative Care Consult Service and founding Director of the Supportive Oncology Writing Core and he sits on the Brigham and Women’s Ethics Committee. Academically, Dr. Leiter writes about the intersection of palliative care and ethics and the emotional experience of working in the field. His writing has been published in the New York Times, The New England Journal of Medicine, STATNews, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Cell, among others. Along with Dr. Alexis Drutchas and Rachel Rusch, LCSW, he is a co-founder of The Palliative Story Exchange, a storytelling intervention that seeks to enhance connection and foster meaning-making among healthcare professionals. Dr. Leiter is a 2024 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Emerging Leader and a recipient of the Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Award for end of life care.