Ji Won Yoo, MD, is a Korean-speaking clinician and health service researcher with a long-term goal to improve decision-making processes and clinical outcomes for vulnerable adults who can easily lose their healthy and happy lives. As a primary care physician and geriatrician, he provides both ambulatory and inpatient care services. He also participates in various formal and informal clinical research mentoring activities for medical students, postgraduate trainees, and visiting scholars at University of Nevada Las Vegas School of Medicine and School of Public Health. His respectful academic mentors are Professors Jay J. Shen, PhD, at School of Public Health and Georgia Dounis, DDS, at School of Dental Medicine, both at University of Nevada Las Vegas as well as Professor Yong-Jae Lee at Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Health outcomes of vulnerable adults are determined by social determinants such as wealth deprivation and epidemiologic trends. His special interest focuses on empirical assessment of health outcomes and social determinants of vulnerable adults struggling with opioid crisis epidemics using the state and national dataset. The stream of work aims to understand responsiveness and behaviors impacted by concurrent health policies such as the Medicaid expansion and cannabis legalization. He also participates in community engagement of promoting palliative care for Asian Americans with life-limiting illnesses in Nevada with the uninterrupted funding support from the Patient-Centered Outcome Research Institute since 2015.

Unmet needs of trained workforce for caring older adults still exists in Southern Nevada. To narrow these gaps, as a geriatrics board-certified physician, he develops partnerships between academic and community-based organizations to promote age-friendly health systems and dementia-friendly communities, so-called “aging in place”. Thankfully, Nevada Governor’s Office funded the University of Nevada Las Vegas School of Medicine to open geriatrics fellowship program where he serves as program leader.

He graduated medical school from Korea University, Seoul, Korea and completed internal medicine and geriatric medicine training at Cleveland Clinic and University of Michigan. Before joining to University of Nevada Las Vegas, he practiced at the Acute Care for the Elderly unit as University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health faculty. His academic bibliography can be sought from CV and Researchgate.

For patient services, please visit the UNLV Health Internal Medicine Clinic.