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Ian Barbash, MD

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Ian Barbash, MD

A practicing clinician, leader, and writer.

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About

Ian Barbash is a practicing clinician, leader, and writer. He is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and a pulmonary and critical care attending physician at UPMC. He graduated from Williams College and Harvard Medical School before completing residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and fellowship in Pittsburgh, where he remains on faculty and lives with his wife and four children.

In addition to his clinical work, he completed training grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, led an ICU telemedicine program during COVID-19, and currently leads physician well-being programs. With a career spanning clinical care, leadership, academic research, and physician well-being, he brings a unique perspective to storytelling in medicine.

His writing spans critical care health services research and narrative medicine, with work appearing in JAMA, NEJM Catalyst, and Annals of Internal Medicine. His memoir, In the Unit, explores his experience with critical illness as both a patient and an ICU survivor. He writes and speaks about that experience to promote empathy for both health care professionals and the people they serve. He shares more on his website and on Substack.

Latest articles

Physician voices

Medical storytelling and the doctor who forgot his lines

It wasn't a great performance. It might not even have been good. But I did it. When I stepped down from the stage, I just felt relieved. I had diligently memorized my lines. I started off by telling the audience…

It wasn’t a great performance. It might not even have been good. But I did it. When I stepped down from the stage, I just felt relieved.

I had diligently memorized my lines. I started off by telling the audience about the time I nearly tipped over trying to put on my underwear. That drew a laugh, as I had hoped it would. For the next seven minutes, the performance went …

Read more…

Medical storytelling and the doctor who forgot his lines

Conditions and diseases

From doctor to patient: a critical care physician’s ICU journey

This is the fifth New Year since the onset of COVID-19 in America. I am a pulmonary and critical care physician who had spent a decade of my life working in ICUs before I became an ICU patient myself in…

This is the fifth New Year since the onset of COVID-19 in America. I am a pulmonary and critical care physician who had spent a decade of my life working in ICUs before I became an ICU patient myself in 2025. As a physician, husband, and father of four young children, I had been saving others. But this year, I needed to be saved.

Transitions are times for introspection. How do …

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From doctor to patient: a critical care physician’s ICU journey

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