Victoria Diane Powell, MD

Dr. Powell is a board-certified physician in Internal Medicine and Hospice & Palliative Medicine and Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. She completed internal medicine internship and residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital (Urban Health track) and hospice and palliative medicine fellowship at the NIH Clinical Center. Clinically, she practices inpatient and outpatient palliative medicine at the LTC Charles Kettles VA Medical Center in Ann Arbor, MI.

Inpatient/acute palliative medicine consultation; inpatient hospice and end of life care; management of symptoms associated with severe and chronic illness; assisting patients in coping with psychosocial and existential distress states, including loneliness, death anxiety, and demoralization; ketamine-assisted treatment for pain and complex mental health conditions; chronic pain care

University of Michigan Health participates with most health insurance plans.

Our team studies integrative treatment methods to address psychosocial, existential, and spiritual distress (e.g. loneliness, demoralization) in people living with chronic pain and serious illness. The goal of our research program is reduce the interference of pain and other symptoms on people's lives. We aim to promote hope through helping people identify sources of meaning and purpose and step toward them, even as medical illness may progress.

Current work is a direct extension of our group's prior findings demonstrating loneliness increases one's likelihood of developing new physical and emotional symptoms over time, with the risk persisting at least several years. We now aim to address these factors by (a) applying theoretical models to develop novel treatement approaches, and (b) testing them in a staged approach.

As part of a clinical trial (https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06419439), we are currently piloting a novel narrative intervention developed with extensive input from patients and other experts to augment the benefits of ketamine, an atypical psychedelic compound, for Veterans with chronic low back pain and depression.