Katrina Nickels, MD

Katrina Nickels MD is a palliative medicine physician at Bluegrass Care Navigators She serves as the Palliative Clinic Supervising Faculty for the University of Kentucky Bluegrass Care Navigators Hospice Palliative Medicine Fellowship She is the Medical Director of the BCN Healing Transitions program a service line developed in partnership with the UK HEALing Communities Study NIH HEAL Initiative a multisite implementation research study investigating tools to prevent and treat opioid misuse and opioid use disorder at the local level The program mission is to link and retain persons with opioid use disorder to evidence based treatment In her 12 years at BCN she has experience as an Associate Hospice Medical Director in the community and in the inpatient hospice units as a community based palliative physician in home and nursing home settings and as an inpatient palliative care consultant in the community hospitals and at the University of Kentucky Medical Center She is active in Opioid Stewardship and Pain Management Committees at the state and hospitalbased healthcare organization levels Outside of her work for BCN she also serves as an officer in the KY Chapter of the American Society of Addiction Medicine Her clinical interests are in the intersection of palliative care with chronic pain management and addiction medicine