Research Field
Rare diseases
Healthcare for vulnerable populations
Regional/community healthcare
Integrated health-welfare services
Social prescribing
Non-medical services
Social determinants of health
Commercial determinants of health
Ecological/planetary determinants of health
Justice in healthcare allocation
Procedural legitimacy of healthcare allocation
Consumer participation
Participation and withdrawal as justice
Patients' rights
Right to health
Capability approach and health justice
Deliberative democracy and public participation
Care ethics
Gender and political economy of care
Disability studies (social model)
Medical professionalism
Control and governance of physician labor
Professional self-regulation
Medical law
National Health Insurance system
Health insurance big data
Digital health
Telemedicine
Artificial intelligence
AI ELSI
Genomic medicine ELSI
Data justice
Implementation science
Complex intervention evaluation
Realist evaluation
Social Return on Investment (SROI)
Brief Summary
"What should hospitals and physicians—indeed, all providers of care—do, beyond medical services, for patients living with incurable illness and their families?" This is the question that drives my research.
Diseases that do not end with treatment, such as rare and intractable conditions, push patients and their families into a vicious cycle of poverty, isolation, and discrimination. I regard breaking this cycle as a task no less important than treatment itself, and one that belongs to all who provide care. This work includes sharing an accurate prognosis and a clear plan of management, helping patients regain a self-directed life, and accompanying families as they learn to embrace and love a member living with disability as a full equal. To these ends, I have designed and delivered—in real clinical settings—non-medical services that address the social determinants of health and connect medicine with social welfare, such as social prescribing and integrated health-welfare services.
Alongside this practice, I pursue the scholarly questions it raises: How should limited medical resources be allocated justly? How should patients and citizens take part in those decisions? How are care and the right to health to be secured? My research brings together justice in healthcare allocation and its procedural legitimacy, care ethics and the capability approach, the autonomy and governance of the medical profession, and the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of the digital health and artificial intelligence era—while striving to test these claims through empirical methods.