Dr. Cynthia X. Pan, MD, FACP, AGSF

Dr. Cynthia X. Pan is a national and international leader in geriatrics and palliative care. She received her BA in Biology from Harvard/Radcliffe and her MD degree from Stony Brook University School of Medicine.  She completed her Internal Medicine residency at the University of Rochester and Geriatrics Fellowship training at Harvard Medical School’s Division on Aging. She was a faculty member of the Departments of Geriatrics and Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine from 1997 to 2006, where she served as Director of Education at the Lilian and Benjamin Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute at Mount Sinai.  She created innovative medical school curricula for Y2K, injecting geriatrics and palliative care principles into all four years of undergraduate medical education. Dr. Pan was Medical Director for Queens for Hospice Care Network from 2006 to 2010.  During this time, Dr. Pan obtained a grant to improve hospice awareness and community outreach to the Asian and Latino population in Queens.  She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Chinese American Medical Society (CAMS).  

Dr. Pan joined NewYork-Presbyterian Queens (NYPQ) in 2010, as the founding director of its Palliative Care Program.  This program has helped thousands of seriously ill patients and families. Dr. Pan now serves as Division Chief of Geriatrics and Palliative Care Medicine, and Associate Program Director for the Palliative Medicine Fellowship. Under her leadership, the NYPQ Palliative Care team is fully interdisciplinary, with physicians, nurse practitioners, social worker, pharmacist, chaplain. Dr. Pan strongly believes in medical and interdisciplinary education, and has a grant to deliver “GOComm”, training over 370 frontline clinicians across NYP campuses; GOComm provides small group communication training focusing on serious illness communication, using standardized patient actors. She has championed multiple quality improvement projects, including the routine use of MOLST forms at NYPQ, improving appropriate use of NIPPV, reducing avoidable falls among hospitalized patients, optimizing appropriate use of feeding tubes, promoting early palliative care consultations and hospice screening, and promoting Age Friendly Health Systems for elderly patients.

Since Dec 2018, Dr. Pan has served as the DIO and Director of Graduate Medical Education at NYPQ. Her goal is to turn residency training into the #MostMeaningfulYears of their lives! Since then, she has empowered the GME teams to strengthen the infrastructure of the GME Committee, improved housestaff engagement and faculty development, and integrated GME more into hospital operations.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Pan disseminated basic palliative care tools to frontline clinicians to help their care of seriously ill patients. She educated the medical and public communities by sharing her personal experiences with COVID-19, lessons learned, and post-traumatic growth.

Dr. Pan works collaboratively with hospital leadership, interdisciplinary team members, and community agencies to optimize palliative care and transitional care for patients with serious illnesses. She has presented in both geriatrics and palliative care national societies, and works to bring awareness of these topics at the international level.  Dr. Pan has a multicultural background and speaks English, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish. She is excited to publish her book, “Exit Strategies: Living Lessons from Dying People,” in November 2024!