James L. Boyer, MD, FACEP

James L. Boyer, MD, specializes in liver diseases, a field he decided to pursue during a stint with the U.S. Health Service in Calcutta, India, during his medical residency. He views each case as unique and approaches each patient with flexibility. “It is important to emphasize that each patient's condition is different and not necessarily as described classically in a textbook or online, and that there is a great deal that we can do to help,” he says.

A professor of medicine (digestive diseases) at Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Boyer is also emeritus director of the Yale Liver Center, which he founded, and he has worked to improve care on a national level serving such organizations as the American Liver Foundation.

Dr. Boyer focuses his clinical practice on autoimmune and cholestatic liver diseases, which can lead to cirrhosis, and is optimistic about recent advances in the understanding of these ailments. “There are many new treatments in development that look promising,” he says. His most memorable patient was the first patient he recommended for a liver transplant. She was a young woman with cirrhosis who doctors predicted would die in several years. Under Dr. Boyer’s care, she lived another 46 years.