Joanna L. Starrels, M.D.

As a clinician-investigator and educator, Dr. Joanna L. Starrels aims to improve the quality of chronic pain management in primary care settings, through helping to define and promote evidence-based use of opioid analgesics. She conducted a health system-wide analysis examining current opioid management practices in primary care, analyzed national data regarding drug overdose death, and is first author of a systematic review of the effectiveness of opioid treatment agreements and urine drug testing for reducing opioid misuse, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. She recently received a five-year career development grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to investigate use of treatment agreements for patients prescribed long-term opioid analgesics.  

Dr. Starrels received her BA from Wesleyan University, where she majored in the Science in Society Program, and her MD from Jefferson Medical College. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and fellowship in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received a MS in Health Policy Research.  Dr. Starrels joined the Einstein/Montefiore faculty in 2008 as an Assistant Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine. In addition, she is teaching faculty in the Primary Care and Social Internal Medicine training programs, where she co-directs the Chronic Pain Curriculum (with Dr. Aaron Fox), facilitates Resident Seminars in Clinical Epidemiology, and serves as faculty mentor for resident projects.