Health Psychology Mentorship

Mentorship Model

PhD students can expect to receive tiered mentorship, meaning mentorship from psychology faculty who also receive mentorship themselves from the senior leadership of the multi-institutional Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science Center. Students will also benefit from ongoing interdisciplinary collaborations across the Tulane Cancer Center, School of Public Health, School of Medicine, Center for Aging, and of course, faculty in social/developmental psychology and neuroscience.

Faculty Accepting Psychology PhD Trainees in Health Psychology for 2018

Michael Hoerger, PhD, MSCR
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Oncology
Website: www.psychmike.com

Dr. Hoerger is an NIH-funded investigator who runs the Psycho-Oncology Research Program, which is committed to supporting quality of life in older adulthood by anticipating, preventing, and alleviating the stress induced by cancer. Applicants with an interest in palliative care psychology research are strongly encouraged to apply. Additional interests include healthcare decision making, adult mental health, personality, and emotion.

Recent Publications:

Hoerger, M., Perry, L. M., Gramling, R., Epstein, R. M., & Duberstein, P. R. (in press). Does educating patients about the Early Palliative Care Study increase preferences for outpatient palliative cancer care? Findings from Project EMPOWER. Health Psychology.

Hoerger, M. (in press). Randomization failure in palliative care RCTs. Palliative Medicine.

Epstein, R. M., Duberstein, P. R., Fenton, J. J., Fiscella, K., Hoerger, M., Tancredi, D. J., Xing, G., Gramling, R., Mohile, S., Franks, P., Kaesberg, P., Plumb, S., Cipri, C. S., Street, R. L., Shields, C. G., Back, A. L., Butow, P., Walczak, A., Tattersall, M., Venuti, A., Sullivan, P., Robinson, M., Hoh, B., Lewis, L., Kravitz, R. L. Effect of a patient-centered communication intervention on oncologist-patient communication, quality of life and healthcare utilization in advanced cancer: The VOICE randomized clinical trial. JAMA Oncology.

Fox, R. S., Lillis, T. A., Gerhart, J., Hoerger, M., & Duberstein, P. (in press). Multiple group confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the DASS-21 Depression and Anxiety scales: How do they perform in a cancer sample? Psychological Reports.

Duberstein, P. R., Chen, M., Chapman, B. P., Hoerger, M., Saeed, F., Guancial, E., & Mack, J. W. (in press). Fatalism and educational disparities in beliefs about the curability of advanced cancer. Patient Education and Counseling.

O'Mahony, S., Ziadni, M., Hoerger, M., Levine, S., Baron, A., Gerhart, J. (in press). Compassion fatigue among palliative care clinicians: Findings on personality factors and years of service. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

Gerhart, J. I., Schmidt, E., Lillis, T., O'Mahony, S., Duberstein, P. R., & Hoerger, M. (in press). Anger proneness and prognostic pessimism in men with prostate cancer. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

Martin, S. M., Gerhart, J. I., Rochefort, C., Perry, L., & Hoerger, M. (in press). Affective forecasting in health psychology. In S. Richards & L. Cohen (Eds.), The Wiley Encyclopedia of Health Psychology, Volume III: Clinical Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine (pp. xx-xx). Oxford, UK: Wiley.

Gramling, R., Fiscella, K., Xing, G., Hoerger, M., Duberstein, P., Plumb, S., Mohile, S., Fenton, J., Tancredi, D., Kravitz, R., & Epstein, R. (2016). Differences of opinion or inadequate communication? Determinants of patient-oncologist prognostic discordance in advanced cancer. JAMA Oncology.

Hoerger, M., Chapman, B. P., Mohile, S. G., & Duberstein, P. R. (2016). Development and psychometric evaluation of the Decisional Engagement Scale (DES-10): A patient-reported psychosocial survey for quality cancer care. Psychological Assessment, 28, 1087-1100.

Hoerger, M., Chapman, B. P., & Duberstein, P. R. (2016). Realistic affective forecasting: The role of personality. Cognition & Emotion, 30, 1304-1316.

Barkan, T., Hoerger, M., Gallegos, A. M., Turiano, N. A., Duberstein, P. R., & Moynihan, J. A. (2016). Personality predicts utilization of mindfulness-based stress reduction during and post-intervention in a community sample of older adults. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 22, 390-395.

Hoerger, M., Scherer, L. D., & Fagerlin, A. (2016). Affective forecasting and medication decision making in breast cancer prevention. Health Psychology, 35, 594-603.

Hoerger, M. (2016). Right-to-Try laws and individual patient "Compassionate Use" of experimental oncology medications: A call for improved provider-patient communication. Death Studies, 40, 113-120.

Gerhart, J. I., Asvat, Y., Lattie, E., O'Mahony, S., Duberstein, P. R., & Hoerger, M. (2016). Distress, delay of gratification and preference for palliative care in patients diagnosed with prostate cancer. Psycho-Oncology, 25, 91-96.

Lattie, E. G., Asvat, Y., Shivpuri, S., Gerhart, J., O'Mahony, S., Duberstein, P., & Hoerger, M. (2016). Associations between personality and end of life care preferences among men with prostate cancer: A clustering approach. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 51, 52-59.

Hoerger, M., Coletta, M., Sörensen, S. Chapman, B., Kaukeinen, K., Tu, X. M., & Duberstein, P. R. (2016). Personality and perceived health in spousal caregivers of patients with lung cancer: The roles of neuroticism and extraversion. Journal of Aging Research.

More Publications by Dr. Hoerger

Additional Departmental Faculty