Dr. Lanken was the Medical Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit and Intermediate Medical Care Unit from 1987 to 1999. He also has served as the Chief of the Critical Care Section of the Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Division. He has been a local leader in clinical investigation in Critical Care Medicine. From 1994 to 2006, he was Principal Investigator of the University of Pennsylvania site of the NIH NHLBI ARDS Clinical Trials Network (“ARDSNet”. As part of this network, he designed and implemented Phase II and III controlled clinical trials to treatment of ARDS, the acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Dr. Lanken is also involved locally and nationally in the field of biomedical ethics. At the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (Penn Med), he serves as Leader of the Humanism and Professionalism Module of Curriculum 2000, the four year curriculum for undergraduate medical education. He is also a Senior Fellow of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics and serves as the Coordinator for Bioethics Teaching at Penn Med. In 2004 he received a secondary appointment as a Professor of Medical Ethics in the Department of Medical Ethics at Penn Med. In 2004, he was also appointed as Associate Dean for Professionalism and Humanism at Penn Med.
Nationally, he has chaired or co-chaired three American Thoracic Society (ATS) Bioethics Committees.
Dr. Lanken also specializes in the evaluation and treatment of patients with pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP). He has performed over 200 lavages over the past 20 years and currently performs 15 to 20 lavages per year.
Finally, he is the senior editor of a textbook of critical care medicine, The Intensive Care Unit Manual, published by Elsevier Inc. in 2001. This textbook was specifically written to be a comprehensive, concise and practical manual for house staff and other clinicians in medical, cardiac and surgical intensive care units.
Lanken P (Chairman). American Thoracic Society Bioethics Task Force Withholding and withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy. Am Rev Respir Dis 144:727-732, 1991.
Asch DA, Hansen-Flaschen J, Lanken PN. Decisions to limit or continue life-sustaining treatment by critical care physicians’ in the United States: Conflicts between physician's practices and patients' wishes. AM J. Respir Crit Care Med. 151:288-292, 1995.
Lanken PM (Co-Chairman). Thoracic Society Bioethics Task Force Fair Allocation of Intensive Care Unit Resources. Official Statement of the American Thoracic Society. Am J Resp Crit Care Med 156:1282-1301, 1997
Lanken, PM (Principal Investigator at University of Pennsylvania). The Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Network Ventilation with lower tidal volumes as compared to traditional tidal volumes for acute lung injury and the acute respiratory distress syndrome. N Engl J Med 342:1301-1308, 2000.
Faber-Langendoen K, Lanken PN for the ACP-ASIM End-of-Life Care Consensus Panel. Dying patients in the intensive care unit: forgoing treatment, maintaining care. Ann Intern Med 133:886-893, 2000.
Lanken PN, Hanson CW III, Manaker S. (Eds). The Intensive Care Unit Manual, Philadelphia, WB Saunders, 2001, 1152 pages (Published in Spanish in 2002)
Arcasoy SM, Lanken PN. Images in clinical medicine. Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. New Engl J Med 347(26):2133, 2002.
Christie JD, Schmidt G, Lanken PN. Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. July 2004. Physicians’ Information and Education Resource (PIER), American College of Physicians.
Christie JD, Lanken PN. Acute lung injury and the acute respiratory distress syndrome, in Hall J, Schmidt G, Wood LDH (Eds). Principles and Practice of Critical Care, 3rd ed., New York, McGraw-Hill, 515-548, 2005.
Lanken PN. Ethics in the Intensive Care Unit, in Fishman AP, Elias J, Fishman J, Grippi MA, Senior RM, Pack AI (Eds) Fishman’s Pulmonary Diseases and Disorders, 4th ed., New York, McGraw-Hill, 2721-2734, 2008.
Christie JD, Lanken PN. Acute lung injury and the acute respiratory distress syndrome: clinical features, management, and outcomes, in Fishman AP, Elias J, Fishman J, Grippi MA, Senior RM, Pack AI (Eds) Fishman’s Pulmonary Diseases and Disorders, 4th ed., New York, McGraw-Hill, 2535-2560, 2008.
Lanken PN, Terry PB, Delisser HM, Fahy BF, Hansen-Flaschen J, Heffner JE, Levy M, Mularski RA, Osborne ML, Prendergast TJ, Rocker G, Sibbald WJ, Wilfond B, Yankaskas JR; ATS End-of-Life Care Task Force. An Official American Thoracic Society clinical policy statement: palliative care for patients with respiratory diseases and critical illnesses. Am J Resp Crit Care Med 177:912-927, 2008.
revised 8/09
