Dr. Rager is from Crawfordsville, Indiana. He attended college at Denison University in Granville, OH, where he studied religion. He completed both a Master’s degree in Bioethics and a Doctor of Medicine at Indiana University and remained at IU for his internal medicine residency. He also completed a health services research fellowship through the National Clinician Scholars Program at the the University of Michigan and currently practices adult outpatient medicine at IU Health University Hospital.

Dr. Rager is interested in the development of evidence-based ways to help patients and clinicians make better medical decisions about preventive services. He is particularly interested in ways to estimate and integrate individualized risk and benefit to identify patients for whom the clinical evidence may not clearly support one medical option over another, and thus decisions need to consider patient preferences and values. Within these areas, he pursues ways to improve shared decision-making and enhance policies and guidelines that seek to promote more personalized, patient-centered care.

Research Interests:

• Development and implementation of evidence-based tools and methods to help clinicians and patients make better medical decisions and achieve the promises of patient-centered care.
• Better estimate and integrate individualized risk and benefit to guide decision making and identify patients for whom medical interventions are preference sensitive.
• Measure and improve shared decision-making.
• Evaluate and enhance policies and guidelines that seek to promote more personalized and patient-centered care.

Selected Publications:

• Rager JB, Schmidt KK, Schwartz PH. Discordant care and decision quality: patients’ reasons for not receiving their initial test of choice in colorectal cancer screening. Medical Decision Making. 2024 (In press).
• Rager JB, Schwartz PH. Defending opioid treatment agreements: disclosure, not binding promise. Hastings Center Report. 2017.

Additional Publications:

Pubmed

Selected Activities: