Hannah T. Oakland, MD

Hannah Takahashi Oakland, MD, is a pulmonologist who specializes in pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the lungs), a subspeciality of pulmonary medicine. She cares for patients in clinic through the Yale Medicine Pulmonary Vascular Disease Program and in the medical intensive care unit at Yale New Haven Hospital.

“Depending on how you define it, pulmonary hypertension is either a fairly rare or quite common disease,” Dr. Oakland says. An early symptom is shortness of breath while performing routine activities. “But many patients go years feeling short of breath without being diagnosed,” Dr. Oakland says.

Dr. Oakland helps patients at all stages of the disease by providing treatments to ease symptoms and help them live longer. She enjoys taking the time to get to know her patients. “It is an honor to provide the kind of intensive care that patients need through the course of this disease, and it’s incredibly rewarding to help many patients feel much better and allow them get back to their lives,” she says.

An instructor in the Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine, Dr. Oakland is also a researcher studying the right ventricle of the heart, which is the part of the heart responsible for pumping blood through the lungs. “Usually, we measure high blood pressure in the heart using safe, but invasive procedures,” she says. “My research focuses on finding non-invasive ways to diagnose and follow patients with pulmonary hypertension and related diseases.”