The American Geriatrics Society - News - 20 US Residency Programs to Participate in Expanded American Geriatrics Society/John A. Hartford Foundation Program Aimed at Better Preparing Surgical and Other Specialty Residents to Care for Older Patients

EMBARGOED
June 5, 2008

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Joe Douglas
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20 US Residency Programs to Participate in Expanded American Geriatrics Society/John A. Hartford Foundation Program Aimed at Better Preparing Surgical and Other Specialty Residents to Care for Older Patients

4 Previous Program Participants Awarded New Dissemination Grants to Facilitate Sharing of Their Training Tools With Others

New York, NY -- The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) has awarded 20 medical school and hospital residency programs two-year Geriatrics Education for Specialty Residents (GSR) grants aimed at better preparing surgical and related medical specialty residents to care for the nation's rapidly increasing population of older adults. The Society has also awarded four medical school and residency programs its inaugural GSR Dissemination Grants (GSR-DG), to enable them to further disseminate the training tools and materials they developed under the GSR program.

The GSR program, which has been supported by the John A. Hartford Foundation since 2001, supports collaborations between surgical and related medical specialty faculty and geriatrics faculty at medical schools and hospitals in ten targeted specialties. Working as a team, the faculty members develop, initiate, and evaluate model initiatives that integrate geriatrics into surgical and related specialty residency training. Each two-year GSR grant of $40,000 supports curricular innovations at each team's home institution. GSR-DG grants range up to $25,000 each.

"As the Institute of Medicine's recent landmark report warns, we must take immediate steps to train healthcare providers to meet the unique healthcare needs of our rapidly growing population of older adults. Programs such as the GSR and GSR-DG are essential to ensuring that surgical and other specialists are prepared to care for aging patients, who have very different medical needs than younger adults," said GSR Project Director Ronnie Ann Rosenthal, Associate Professor of Surgery, at Yale University. "We are extremely pleased to be able to award both 20 new GSR grants and the new GSR-DG grants this year."

The GSR is part of the AGS' larger Geriatrics-for-Specialists' Initiative (GSI), also funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation, which aims to help prepare surgeons and other medical specialists provide healthcare tailored to the unique needs of older adults. The AGS' Section for Surgical and Related Medical Specialties oversees the GSI, which targets ten specialties - anesthesiology, emergency medicine, general surgery, gynecology, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery, otolaryngology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, thoracic surgery and urology.

Since the GSR was established in 2001, the initiative has supported 66 collaborations that have enhanced training for surgical and related specialty residents in medical schools and hospitals throughout the country. Many U.S. training programs, however, still lack curricula specific to the care of older patients. The goal of the GSR is to change this. The GSR does this in two ways. It fosters the development of geriatric education curricula for specialty trainees, thereby enabling these trainees to acquire the knowledge and skills to provide quality care for older patients. By focusing on these trainees, it also ensures that their knowledge is disseminated further when these individuals then teach colleagues, faculty and students in return.

2008-2010 GSR award recipients, their specialties, their home institutions, and the geriatrics faculty members with whom they will collaborate are:

Anesthesiology
Program:		Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA
Program Director:		Reuben J. Azocar, MD
Geriatrician:		Serena Cho, MD, MPH

Program:		Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY
Program Director:		Kaplana Tyagaraj, MD / Dennis Feierman, MD, PhD
Geriatrician:		Jennifer Breznay, MD, MPH

Emergency Medicine
Program:		Boonshoft School of Medicine, Wright State University, Kettering, OH
Program Director:		John Michael Ballester, MD
Geriatrician:		Gordana Gataric, MD

Program:		CHRISTUS Spohn Memorial Hospital, Corpus Christi, TX
Program Director:		Thomas McLaughlin, DO
Geriatrician:		Kathleen Soch, MD

Program:		SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY
Program Director:		Jessica Stetz, MD, MS
Geriatrician:		Joel R. Gernsheimer, MD

Program:		Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN
Program Director:		Lee Wilbur, MD
Geriatrician:		Glenda Westmorland, MD

General Surgery
Program:		Duke University, Durham, NC
Program Director:		Sandhya Lagoo-Deenadayalan, MD, PhD
Geriatrician:		Mitchell T. Heflin, MD

Program:		University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, NV
Program Director:		Patricia May, MD
Geriatrician:		Diane Chau, MD

Program:		MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Program Director:		Nancy D. Perrier, MD
Geriatrician:		Holly M. Holmes, MD

Program:		University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX
Program Director:		Taylor S. Riall, MD, PhD
Geriatrician:		Anita C. Mercado, MD

Program:		Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Balitmore, MD
Program Director:		Dorry Segev, MD
Geriatrician:		Grace Cordts, MD, MPH

Gynecology
Program:		University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA
Program Director:		Harrison G. Ball, MD
Geriatrician:		Sarah McGee, MD, MPH

Ophthalmology
Program:		Summa Health System, Akron, OH
Program Director:		Nancy E. Awender, MD
Geriatrician:		Kyle R. Allen, DO

Program:		Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT
Program Director:		C. Robert Bernardino, MD
Geriatrician:		Leo M. Cooney, MD

Program:		MetroHealth Medical Center, Cleveland, OH
Program Director:		Kimberly Cingle, MD
Geriatrician:		Hans Geho, MD

Orthopaedic Surgery
Program:		University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
Program Director:		Neil Segal, MD
Geriatrician:		Paul Mulhausen, MD

Otolaryngology
Program:		University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AK
Program Director:		Paul M. Spring, MD
Geriatrician:		Vinay Kutagula, MD

PM&R
Program:		Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Program Director:		Dale C. Strasser, MD
Geriatrician:		Thomas Price, MD

Urology
Program:		The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX
Program Director:		Joseph Basler, MD
Geriatrician:		Elizabeth Glazier, MD

Program:		University of Florida, Gainsville, FL
Program Director:		Philipp Dahm, MD, MHSc
Geriatrician:		Ron Shorr, MD, MS

The GSR-DG program offers support to past recipients of GSR grants in order to disseminate their work to their colleagues in residency programs in other institutions, in other disciplines within their own institutions, or both. In so doing, successful GSR Dissemination Grant awardees will serve as leaders in their specialties, utilizing their experiences in program development and implementation to disseminate workable educational models to other specialty training programs. The GSR-DG grant recipients, their specialties, their home institutions, the geriatrics faculty members with home they will collaborate and are:

Emergency Medicine
Program:		North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, NY
Program Director:		Michael Cassara, DO

General Surgery
Program:		MetroHealth Medical Center, Cleveland, OH
Program Director:		Joel R. Peerless, MD

Program:		Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT
Program Director:		Melissa Perkal, MD

Gynecology
Program:		University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL
Program Director:		Holly Richter, PhD, MD

For more information about the GSR, visit http://www.americangeriatrics.org/specialists/gsr/default.asp. For more information about the GSR-DG, please contact Rachael Edberg Silverman at redberg@americangeriatrics.org.

ABOUT THE AGS
Founded in 1942, the American Geriatrics Society (www.americangeriatrics.org) is a nationwide, not-for-profit association of geriatrics health care professionals dedicated to improving the health, independence, and quality of life of all older people. The Society supports this mission through activities in clinical practice, professional and public education, research, and public policy. With an active membership of over 6,700 health care professionals, the Society has become a pivotal force in shaping attitudes, policies, and practices in geriatric medicine.