Dr. Podgurski is a clinician-educator who teaches palliative care skills in the clinical setting. She has a special interest in teaching the psychological elements of palliative care to all levels of learners. This includes the Psychological Elements of Palliative Care series for HPM fellows, a mindfulness-based self-care series for health care clinicians, and a monthly Psychosocial Rounds for the Section of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics. She has served as a facilitator for intensive, practice-based communication skills training workshops following the VitalTalk model and organized the first GynOncoTalk workshop in this model in 2016.
In the medical school setting, she is the director for the Longitudinal Alliance Program (LAP) and has served as a Clinical Skills Preceptor. LAP involves pairing first year medical students with people living with chronic illness to foster learning about health and health care from a patient perspective over a period of years. The program also offers exposure to nonphysician roles in health care and promotion of a professional practice of reflecting on patient relationships, including skillfully navigating professional boundaries.
Dr. Podgurski cares for patients on the inpatient palliative care consult services at UPMC Shadyside, Magee, and Presbyterian/Montefiore Hospitals. She is interested in supportive care for maximizing quality of life of all patients with serious illness. Her outpatient clinic focuses on palliative and supportive care for people who are living with advanced cancer.
Dr. Podgurski engages in scholarly work on promoting psychological-mindedness among clinicians working with seriously ill patients. This includes developing expert consensus about the most crucial psychological concepts and primary mental health skills for palliative care specialists. This also intersects with her work on clinician wellbeing, where she has published on a mindfulness-based self-care curriculum for an interprofessional group of palliative care clinicians. Inn her role as leader of LAP, she is also interested in scholarship on the educational effects of early longitudinal patient contact in undergraduate medical training.
- BS, Biology-Psychology and Medical Anthropology, Carnegie Mellon University, 2003
- MD, Harvard Medical School, 2009
- Internal Medicine Residency, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, 2012
- Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, 2013
- MS, Medical Education, University of Pittsburgh, 2014
- James T. McLaughlin Psychodynamic Training Program, 2014
- Training on Applying Cognitive Behavioral & Related Interventions in Cancer Supportive Care, City of Hope & the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, 2017
- Certified Peer Coach Training, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, 2022
Education & Training
Podgurski L, Chammas D, Brenner KO, Rosenberg LB, Goyal NG, Lapid MI, Morris SE, Pirl WF, Sumser B, Thompson BJ, Wright L, Shalev D. Primary mental health competencies for hospice and palliative medicine physicians: A Delphi study. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2025.
Lefkowits C, Bevis K, Carey EC, Sheeder J, Arnold RM, Podgurski L. Gynecologic oncology providers endorse practice-changing impact of communication skills training. Gynecol Oncol. 2019; 153(3):533-538.
Podgurski L, Greco C, Croom A, Arnold R, Claxton R. A brief mindfulness-based self-care curriculum for an interprofessional group of palliative care providers. J Palliat Med. 2019; 22(5):561-565.
El-Jawahri A, Podgurski LM, Eichler AF, Plotkin SR, Temel JS, Mitchell SL, Chang Y, Barry MJ, Volandes AE. Use of video to facilitate end-of-life discussions with patients with cancer: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2010; 28(2):305-310.
- Recipient, Physician Thrive Grant for Change, 2019, 2022
- Fellow, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 2022
