ROCHESTER, Minn. — Andrea Cheville, M.D., physical medicine and rehabilitation researcher and director of the Cancer Rehabilitation Program at Mayo Clinic, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Being elected to the academy, formerly known as the Institute of Medicine, is considered one of the highest honors in health and medicine.

Dr. Cheville is one of two Mayo Clinic physicians to be elected this year. Orthopedic surgeon and researcher Michael Yaszemski, M.D., Ph.D., also was selected.

“To have colleagues from distinct practice areas recognized in the same year is an incredible honor for them individually and for Mayo Clinic as a whole,” says John Noseworthy, M.D., president and CEO, Mayo Clinic. “Such recognition underscores the commitment of our physician-scientists in advancing research to address unmet patient needs, educating the next generation of physicians and scientists, and providing unparalleled care for patients and their families.”

Dr. Cheville is well-known for developing patient-centric, cost-effective strategies for delivering supportive care to people with complex and chronic conditions. Her clinical and research interests are cancer rehabilitation, lymphedema and palliative medicine. She has examined factors that cause people with cancer and other chronic conditions to lose function and shown that these factors are widely undertreated, especially in the outpatient setting.

Dr. Cheville is professor and chair of research in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation on Mayo Clinic’s Rochester campus, where she directs the cancer rehabilitation and lymphedema clinic. She is medical director for the Care Experience Program in the Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery.

Dr. Cheville earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1993 and her master of science degree in clinical epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006. She is board‐certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation, pain medicine, and hospice and palliative medicine.

In June 2016, she was appointed to the Health Services Organization and Delivery Study Section in the National Institutes of Health Center for Scientific Review. This group, which is made up of experts in health care delivery, reviews complex and multidisciplinary grant applications for possible funding.

“Dr. Cheville’s research has brought significant improvements in identifying, preventing and remediating disability in people with chronic illness,” Dr. Noseworthy says. “Her work has led to innovations in clinical practice at our cancer rehabilitation and lymphedema clinic, namely integrating palliative principles into the holistic rehabilitation of patients with late-stage cancer.”

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