Geriatrics-For-Specialists Initiative (GSI)

Launched in 1994, the Geriatrics-for-Specialists Initiative (GSI) helps prepare surgeons and related medical specialists to meet the unique healthcare needs of the nation's growing population of older adults. Funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation of New York, the GSI is overseen by a council of leaders in the initiative's ten participating specialties. The ten specialties are: anesthesiology, emergency medicine, general surgery, gynecology, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery, otolaryngology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, thoracic surgery and urology.

GSI programs include:

The Geriatrics Education for Specialty Residents (GSR) Program Established in 2001 and funded by the Hartford Foundation, the GSR program awards medical school and hospital residency programs two-year grants totaling $40,000 each to support collaborations between geriatrics faculty and surgical and related medical specialty faculty in the GSI's ten targeted specialties. Working as a team, faculty members develop, initiate, and evaluate model initiatives that integrate geriatrics into surgical and related specialty residency training.

The Jahnigen Career Development Scholars Awards Program (JCDA Program) Supported by the John A. Hartford Foundation and The Atlantic Philanthropies, the Dennis W. Jahnigen Career Development Scholars Awards are designed to help address the shortage of academicians in surgical and other medical specialties who have a special interest in, and knowledge of, the care of older adults. The awards go to faculty in the GSI's ten targeted specialties, and help promising academic specialists start and sustain careers in education and research that are focused on aging issues. Over the course of two years, each Jahnigen scholar receives $150,000, with his or her home institution providing an additional $50,000 in matching support.

In 2008, the GSI:

• Selected nine junior faculty as recipients of Jahnigen Career Development Scholar Awards, bringing the total number of Jahnigen Scholars since the program's inception in 2002, to 72.
  
  
• Held the first annual Jahnigen Leadership Retreat, which brought together 50 Jahnigen Scholars. The two-day meeting was designed to help the Scholars further enhance the skills they need to continue to advance in their research careers. Dr. Judah Folkman, MD, an internationally renowned surgeon, researcher and academic leader from Harvard, delivered the keynote address.
  
  
• Released a supplement to New Frontiers in Geriatrics Research: An Agenda for Surgical and Related Medical Specialties, a research agenda. Following the success of the agenda, GSI specialty and geriatrician leaders and Jahnigen Scholars collaborated on the supplement. The supplement aims to refine the original research agenda, identifying those items that have been resolved, noting those that still need further research, and adding items where emerging science suggests a need. The supplement and the original agenda are available online in their entirety and are cross-indexed and cross-linked for ease of use.