Lauren Hamel PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Oncology, Wayne State University School of Medicine
Lauren M. Hamel, PhD is Associate Professor of Oncology and Co-Program Leader of the Population Studies and Disparities Research Program at the Karmanos Cancer Institute and the Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan. She is also the faculty director of KCI’s Medical Interaction Research Archive (MIRA).
Dr. Hamel is an expert in patient-physician communication, cancer treatment disparities, and in building and testing interventions to improve patient-physician communication. She was PI of two recently completed NIH-funded studies assessing nonverbal synchrony and nonverbal communication that occurs between Black patients with cancer and their oncologists during clinical interactions. She is investigating aspects of nonverbal communication as potential markers of racial attitudes (e.g., physician unconscious bias, patient suspicion of medical care) and predictors of interaction outcomes (R21MD011766; R03CA195147).
Currently, Dr. Hamel is PI of an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Health Equity Grant (R01 equivalent; RSG-20-026-01-CPHPS) to test the effectiveness of a patient-focused intervention, the Discussions of Cost (DISCO) App, on patient-provider treatment cost discussions and other patient financial toxicity-related outcomes.
She has published her work in 50+ articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals including Cancer, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and JCO Oncology Practice, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries.