Professional Bio
Christine J. Ko, MD is a Professor of Dermatology and Pathology at Yale University. She is board certified in dermatology with a specialty certificate in dermatopathology. Her research interests include squamous cell carcinoma and keratoacanthoma as well as clinicopathologic correlation of skin disease. Dr. Ko received her AB at Princeton University and MD from New York University School of Medicine. She completed her internship in internal medicine at UCLA, her dermatology residency at University of California, Irvine, and her dermatopathology fellowship at UCLA. She has published numerous articles and chapters in dermatology and dermatopathology and is the creative mind behind Dermatology: Visual Recognition and Case Reviews and Dermatopathology: Diagnosis by First Impression. As an authority in dermatology, she has authored chapters on the skin in Goldman-Cecil Medicine, Brenner and Rector’s The Kidney, and Braunwald’s Heart Disease.
Her first book for the general audience, How to Improve Doctor-Patient Connection: Using Psychology to Optimize Healthcare Interactions, was inspired and driven by her own experience as the mother of a patient whose condition went undiagnosed for longer than it should have.
Dr. Ko was a Public Voices Fellow through The OpEd Project and has written opinion pieces for outlets including USA Today, Medium, and Visible Magazine. She continues to write and many of her articles are linked from her blog.
Select Articles
- Visual perception, cognition, and error in dermatologic diagnosis: Key cognitive principles
- Visual perception, cognition, and error in dermatologic diagnosis: Diagnosis and error
- Relationship-Centered Care in the Physician-Patient Interaction: Improving Your Understanding of Metacognitive Interventions
For a more comprehensive list of publications, visit my profile page at the Yale School of Medicine.
My Story
When I was a teenager, my grandfather was hospitalized for a short time as a terminal patient. I remember being tasked with suctioning the phlegm from his lungs with a special cannula. That brief experience gave me a sense of the power of healthcare, reinforcing my career goal of being a doctor. Much later, as a medical student and then fully-minted MD, the in-hospital battle waged against death combined with the knowledge of its ultimate inevitability, created the first stirrings of existential confusion – Was what I did enough? Did what I do matter? The answers can be simple and complicated at the same time, a truth known to anyone who interacts with toddlers and their Whys.
Regarding kids, I am a changed (and better) person through being a mom, and though that role raises more existential questions than ever before, I am graced with that identity by two little ones (no matter how big they are!).
Life is full of wonder, and I think that might be enough. Being unsure, I’ll stop with the words for now and leave you with this photograph I took while on a fall bike ride with my family in New England. What do you see?
Blacked out, color; naked, vibrant; light, dark; shadow, sun; real, reflection; start, end; foreground, background; air, water; life, death…
Fun Fact
I occasionally teach kickboxing and HIIT classes at my favorite gym, mActivity. Check their schedule to see if I am currently holding classes.