Jacob Mirsky, MD, MA, DipABLM, FACLM
Dr. Jacob Mirsky is a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and the Assistant CME Course Director at the MGH Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine. He is board certified in both internal medicine and lifestyle medicine, and in 2024 he was named a Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine for the “highest standard of professional development and contribution to the field.”
Dr. Mirsky is a national leader in lifestyle medicine as well as Shared Medical Appointment (SMA) clinical program development and implementation. He has led 300+ lifestyle medicine SMAs and since 2021 has served as the Medical Director of MGH’s Healthy Lifestyle Program, which is the largest lifestyle medicine SMA program in the country.
Innovation
Dr. Mirsky has a proven track record building and scaling boundary-pushing lifestyle medicine clinical programs.
Lifestyle Medicine Shared Medical Appointments
As the co-founder and Medical Director of the award-winning MGH Healthy Lifestyle Program, Dr. Mirsky has overseen the growth of the largest lifestyle medicine SMA clinical program in the country since 2021. The Healthy Lifestyle Program now includes 16 primary care physicians and nurse practitioners, as well as 13 specialists in the MGH Department of Medicine, who lead virtual lifestyle medicine SMAs. Dr. Mirsky has spent years building and refining lifestyle medicine SMA curricula, trainings, and workflows with the MGH Healthy Lifestyle Program team, and several of these are now licensed by Mass General Brigham for use across the country.
Food Is Medicine
Dr. Mirsky is also the co-founder and Medical Director of the MGH Revere Food Pantry and Teaching Kitchen, which is the first plant-based food pantry in the country and also features a state-of-the-art teaching kitchen. The MGH Revere Food Pantry and Teaching Kitchen is currently the only brick-and-mortar food pantry and teaching kitchen in the Mass General Brigham enterprise and serves as a testing ground for innovative Food Is Medicine strategies to address nutrition insecurity and chronic disease.
Health and Wellness Coaching
The MGH Healthy Lifestyle Program that Dr. Mirsky leads fully integrates four health and wellness coaches into every lifestyle medicine SMA. Dr. Mirsky has worked closely with health and wellness coaches to define clinical workflows and best practices to support sustainable behavior changes for patients participating in SMAs.
Research & Publications
Dr. Mirsky has published multiple articles in recent years on lifestyle medicine, SMAs, and “Food Is Medicine,” including:
A retrospective study on a novel lifestyle medicine SMA program that he co-developed for patients with hypertension, as well as a two-year follow-up study
A survey study on patient-reported benefits as well as a second study on patient perspectives from participation in the MGH Heathy Lifestyle Program
An analysis of the transition to virtual lifestyle medicine SMAs during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic
A case study on the development of the MGH Revere Food Pantry
A study of weight benefits of pediatric patients receiving plant-based food packages from MGH Revere Food Pantry
He has also written about leveraging big data to harness healthy lifestyle changes, the value of lifestyle medicine SMAs for chronic disease care, and the need for patient participation in Food Is Medicine programs.
Ongoing Research
Dr. Mirsky is currently the co-Principle Investigator on multiple research studies at MGH on lifestyle medicine SMAs, “Food is Medicine,” and culinary medicine.
Clinical Care
Primary Care
Dr. Mirsky is passionate about providing high-quality comprehensive care for underserved patient populations and has spent his entire career at the MGH Revere HealthCare Center, where he continues to practice primary care.
Lifestyle Medicine SMAs
He also leads weekly lifestyle medicine SMAs in the MGH Healthy Lifestyle Program on topics including hypertension, prediabetes and diabetes, hyperlipidemia, brain care, insomnia, gastroesophageal reflux disease, stress reduction and mindfulness, and more.
Academia
Talks
Dr. Mirsky has presented and led workshops at several national conferences, including multiple annual American College of Lifestyle Medicine conferences and Harvard Medical School Herbert Benson Courses in Mind-Body Medicine.
Service
He is a member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, where he serves as the MGH Representative on the Health Systems Council. Dr. Mirsky currently serves as a member on the Mass General Brigham Nutrition Security and Equity Workgroup and the Greater Boston Food Bank Health and Research Council. He has previously served as a member on the White House Office of Public Engagement Health Equity Leaders Roundtable Series and the MGH Executive Committee on Community Health Sub-Committee on Social Determinants of Health.
Training
He has spent his entire medical career at some of the top hospitals in the country: University of California San Francisco for medical school, Brigham and Women’s Hospital for internal medicine residency, and now MGH.