Gail Geller

About

Gail Geller, ScD, MHS, is a Professor in the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, with joint appointments in the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Departments of Health, Behavior & Society and Health Policy & Management, as well as in the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Sociology. She also holds an adjunct appointment in the Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine. As a sociologist, Dr. Geller applies social and behavioral sciences to address moral and humanistic questions in medicine and public health. Her research focuses on the ethical and social implications of genetic testing across adult, pediatric, and family contexts, and she has been an active member of the Ethical, Legal & Social Implications (ELSI) research community since its inception. Dr. Geller has conducted extensive empirical research, both quantitative and qualitative, on these topics and has participated in NIH consortia related to cancer genetics and informed consent. She has also applied her expertise to the infectious disease context, serving as Co-Principal Investigator of an NHGRI CEER addressing ELSI issues in genomics for infectious diseases, and is currently involved in a study on ethics and stakeholder attitudes toward molecular epidemiology for HIV surveillance. Beyond genetics, her scholarship includes the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), the role of palliative care in chronic diseases, and medical socialization. She has received…

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Epistemology
• Law
• Philosophy

Selected publications

• Tolerance for Ambiguity Among Medical Students: Patterns of Change During Medical School and Their Implications for Professional Development

  Academic Medicine · 2020-11-03 · 67 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  PURPOSE: Tolerance for ambiguity (TFA) is important for physicians, with implications for ethical behavior and patient care. This study explores how medical students' TFA changes from matriculation to graduation and how change in empathy and openness to diversity are associated with this change. METHOD: Data for students who took the Matriculating Student Questionnaire (MSQ) in 2013 or 2014 and the Medical School Graduation Questionnaire (GQ) in 2017 or 2018 were drawn from the Association of Am…

  PublisherDOI

• Experimental Philosophical Bioethics

  AJOB Empirical Bioethics · 2020 · 55 citations

  There is a rich tradition in bioethics of gathering empirical data to inform, supplement, or test the implications of normative ethical analysis. To this end, bioethicists have drawn on diverse methods, including qualitative interviews, focus groups, ethnographic studies, and opinion surveys to advance understanding of key issues in bioethics. In so doing, they have developed strong ties with neighboring disciplines such as anthropology, history, law, and sociology. Collectively, these lines of…

  DOI

• Development of a Scale to Measure Trust in Public Health Authorities: Prevalence of Trust and Association with Vaccination

  Journal of Health Communication · 2021-04-03 · 41 citations

  articleOpen access

  Infectious disease outbreaks highlight the importance of trust in public health authorities to avoid fear and improve adherence to recommendations. There is currently no established and validated measure for trust in public health authorities. We aimed to develop and validate an instrument that measures trust in public health authorities and to assess the association between trust in public health authorities and vaccine attitudes. We developed 20 items to measure trust in public health authorit…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Brief Report: Challenges in Obtaining the Informed Perspectives of Stakeholders Regarding HIV Molecular Epidemiology

  JAIDS Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes · 2023-02-20 · 18 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: HIV molecular epidemiology (HIV-ME) is now being used in a variety of ways, including molecular HIV surveillance to help identify and respond to emerging HIV transmission clusters as specified in the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. initiative. However, HIV-ME in general, and its use for cluster detection and response, in particular, raises significant ethical and social concerns, which have spurred vigorous debates. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of information regarding how th…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Perceived Value of Prenatal Ultrasound Screening: A Survey of Pregnant Women

  Maternal and Child Health Journal · 2022-11-09 · 12 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01HG001871

  NIH · $1.1M · 2002

• NIH Grant R01NR004062

  NIH · $766k · 1998

• NIH Grant P20HG007261

  NIH · $826k · 2016

Frequent coauthors

• Jeremy Sugarman

  98 shared

• Cynda Hylton Rushton

  Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics

  90 shared

• Debra Mathews

  74 shared

• Jon C. Tilburt

  Mayo Clinic in Arizona

  64 shared

• Joseph A. Carrese

  Johns Hopkins Medicine

  63 shared

• Barbara A. Bernhardt

  58 shared

• Juli Bollinger

  Johns Hopkins University

  56 shared

• Mary Catherine Beach

  Johns Hopkins Medicine

  53 shared

Awards & honors

• Kornfeld Fellowship
• Fellow of the Hastings Center
• NIH challenge grant

Similar researchers at Johns Hopkins University

• Mary Catherine Beachh-87
• Ruth R. Fadenh-71