Dr. Karen Hirsch

Biography

Dr. Karen G. Hirsch specializes in the treatment of critically ill patients with neurologic disorders in the intensive care unit. Her research focuses on utilizing continuous discrete multi-modal data to develop phenotypes and identify treatment responsiveness in patients experiencing coma and cardiac arrest. As Co-Principal Investigator of the PRECICECAP study, she collaborates with data scientists and industry partners at Stanford to apply machine learning techniques to complex ICU data. Dr. Hirsch studies neuroimaging related to post-cardiac arrest coma and traumatic brain injury and works closely with colleagues in Cardiac Anesthesia and Cardiothoracic Surgery to evaluate neurologic outcomes for patients using mechanical circulatory support. In addition, she investigates ethical issues related to brain death and organ donation. Dr. Hirsch is also the Co-PI for the BCI-DEF project, funded by the BRAIN Initiative, which focuses on assessing the perspectives and ethical challenges of using Brain-Computer Interfaces in patients who have suffered stroke or traumatic brain injury. Her work aims to improve neurologic outcomes in patients with acute severe brain injuries and explores the ethical implications of novel neurotechnologies in neurocritical care.

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