Anica Law MD, MS, ATSF
Assistant Professor, Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care Medicine
72 East Concord Street | (617) 358-2800anicalaw@bu.edu
Sections
Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care Medicine
Biography
Dr. Law is a Pulmonary and Critical Care physician, clinical epidemiologist, and health services researcher with a focus on understanding determinants of outcomes after critical illness. An unprecedented number of patients now survive the intensive care unit (ICU) but suffer severe organ dysfunction, requiring forms of long-term organ support, such as mechanical ventilation or artificial nutrition. Using both granular clinical and national claims databases, and leveraging natural experiments where feasible (e.g., policy changes), the goal of her research is to better inform decision-making during critical illness and the optimal delivery of care after acute critical illness.
She has published > 70 original studies in high-impact journals including JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine, JAMA Network Open, AJRCCM, and Annals of Internal Medicine. Her work has been included in the Top Papers” in the ATS Clinical Year in Review (2023, 2024), and covered by media outlets such as NPR, U.S. News & World Report, and the Associated Press. Her NIA-funded F32 and NHLBI-funded K23 characterized national practices and outcomes for patients receiving long-term feeding and breathing tubes during critical illness. These studies demonstrated (1) poor patient-centered outcomes after receipt of feeding/breathing tubes and (2) unexpected declines in incidence of prolonged mechanical ventilation with increases in palliative care and hospice among Medicare beneficiaries—trends that diverged from earlier projections. She also showed that Medicare payment reforms substantially reduced access to long-term acute care hospitals (LTACHs), leading to increased use of do-not-resuscitate orders and lower costs to Medicare, highlighting how policy shifts influence upstream care decisions and post-acute resource use. She now helms an R01, "Quantifying Uncertainty to Inform Time-Limited Trials of Invasive Mechanical Ventilation" (scored in the 1st percentile at NIH/NHLBI), which seeks to improve patient and family engagement in early prognostication for mechanically ventilated patients.
Education
MD, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
MS, Harvard School of Public Health
Biology, AB, Harvard College
Publications
Law AC, Bosch NA, Song Y, Tale AP, Nelson J, Wadhera RK, Barnato AE, Walkey AJ. Improved agreement between in-hospital and time-delimited mortality by including hospice discharges. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2026 Jun 01; 23(6):998-1000. PMID: 41849433.
Published on 5/1/2026Law AC, Bosch NA, Song Y, Tale AP, Nelson J, Wadhera RK, Barnato AE, Walkey AJ. Trends in discharge to hospice after critical illness among US Medicare beneficiaries, 2011-2023. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2026 May 01; 23(5):815-818. PMID: 41705500.
Published on 4/1/2026Bhuiya S, Teja B, Law AC, Gershengorn H, Iwashyna TJ, Vail E, Walkey AJ, Wunsch H, Bosch NA. Vasoactive regimens and outcomes in patients with septic shock: an observational cohort study. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2026 Apr 01; 23(4):662-665. PMID: 41915563.
Published on 3/1/2026Shi Z, Bosch NA, Heckman EJ, Gershengorn HB, Shankar DA, Law AC. Validation of a charge-based algorithm for identifying days receiving invasive mechanical ventilation. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2026 Mar 01; 23(3):464-467. PMID: 41842742.
Published on 2/23/2026Law AC, Kruser JM. Measuring Uncertainty to Inform Time-Limited Trials: Do We Know What We Don't Know? Crit Care Med. 2026 Apr 01; 54(4):1013-1016. PMID: 41729054.
Published on 2/4/2026Berube M, Bortman JM, Law AC, Bosch NA. Haemoglobin threshold-based blood transfusion practices in patients following hip fracture surgery: a multicentre retrospective study. Hip Int. 2026 Feb 04; 11207000251409092. PMID: 41636050.
Published on 2/1/2026Li B, Gershengorn HB, Vail EA, Wunsch H, Walkey AJ, Law AC, Ko D, Ayalon N, Kearney CM, Bosch NA. Inotrope selection in mixed cardiogenic shock with sepsis: a comparative analysis between milrinone and dobutamine. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2026 Feb 01; 23(2):252-260. PMID: 40960311.
Published on 1/26/2026Feeney ME, Canova AE, Law AC, Walkey AJ, Bosch NA. Guideline-Concordant Sedative and Analgesia Use in Critically Ill Patients Receiving Sustained Neuromuscular Blockade. Crit Care Explor. 2026 Feb 01; 8(2):e1370. PMID: 41586742.
Published on 12/12/2025Shankar DA, Bosch NA, Jafarzadeh SR, Drainoni ML, Wiener RS, Wilson KC, Hawkins FJ, Alysandratos KD, Walkey AJ, Law AC. Association of Pulse Dose Corticosteroids With Outcomes Among Patients With Acute Exacerbations of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. CHEST Pulm. 2025 Dec; 3(4). PMID: 41503513.
Published on 10/27/2025Shen BH, Shankar DA, Bosch NA, Walkey AJ, Piazza G, Klings ES, Law AC. Contemporary reperfusion therapies in patients with intermediate- and high-risk pulmonary embolism. Thromb Res. 2025 Dec; 256:109523. PMID: 41175547.
Media Mentions
Published on 6/9/2024
Higher Sepsis Mortality in Safety-Net Hospitals Linked to Fewer Post-Discharge Care Options
Published on 11/22/2023
LTCH closures send more patients to nursing homes, but are they ready?
Published on 11/21/2023
Long-term acute care hospital closures may have unintended consequences for patient care
Published on 1/7/2022
More Evidence That State Lotteries Didn't Boost Vaccination Rates
Published on 1/7/2022
More Evidence That State Lotteries Didn't Boost Vaccination Rates
Published on 1/4/2022
COVID-19 vaccine lotteries didn't increase inoculation rates: study
Published on 1/4/2022
More Evidence Suggests Few Winners in COVID Vax Lottery Strategy
Published on 1/4/2022
Lottery-Based Incentives Do Not Increase COVID-19 Vaccination Rates
Published on 12/10/2021
Speaking does not imply breathing, and this is a dangerous myth
Published on 11/24/2021
Are Covid vaccine mandates ethical? Here’s what medical experts think
View full list of 17 media mentions.