Dr. Katrina Armstrong has been hired as the next physician-in-chief at Massachusetts General Hospital's department of medicine. She starts April 15, and will replace Dr. Dennis Ausiello, who has been chief of medicine since 1996.

Armstrong, 46, is a professor of medicine and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia. She is also the chief of the school's general internal medicine division, associate director of its Abramson Cancer Center and co-director of its Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars program.

Her areas of expertise include medical decisionmaking and genetic testing for breast cancer. Armstrong's research has covered such varied topics as using genomics to reduce health disparities and how retail clinics tend to be located in areas where residents have higher median incomes, higher percentage of home ownership and higher rates of healthcare insurance coverage.

Armstrong started at the University of Pennsylvania in 1996 as a physician-scientist fellow, joined the faculty in 1998 and was appointed internal medicine division chief in 2008, according to a news release.

After leaving the department, Ausiello will work on developing the Center for Assessment Technology and Continuous Health, described as a collaborative effort between scientists, clinicians and engineers at Massachusetts General and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the release said.