Since 1993, the Clinician of the Year Award has recognized the great contributions of practitioners to delivering quality healthcare for older people and showcases the importance of the geriatrics clinician in our healthcare system. Through these clinicians' efforts, scientific advances are integrated into the practice of geriatrics, resulting in improved well-being and quality-of-life for older people.
2026 Recipient: Veronica Rivera, MD, AGSF
Veronica Rivera, MD, AGSF, Associate Professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is the AGS 2026 Clinician of the Year. She was awarded this in recognition for her exceptional clinical career dedicated to strengthening community-based health programs, leveraging technology to improve the care of older adults, and integrating age-friendly principles beyond specialty settings.
Dr. Rivera works to infuse age-friendly care beyond specialty settings and into the larger primary care workforce. She advocates for geriatricians to serve as key partners—providing support to primary care clinicians, in person or electronically, as needed—to help manage the care of older adults with complex needs. To this end, she provides primary care and geriatrics consultation at the Family Health Center of Harlem, a community health center where she also oversees the geriatrics curriculum for their family medicine residency program. As a Master Clinician and Medical Director at Mount Sinai, her goal is to share best geriatric practices and tools with the large network of primary care sites across the Mount Sinai Health System.
Since October 2012, Dr. Rivera has provided primary care and geriatrics consultation to medically complex older adults at the Coffey Geriatrics Practice at the Martha Stewart Center for Living, where she also precepts medical students and geriatrics fellows. After serving as Associate Director of this practice for the past 4 years, Dr. Rivera assumed the role of Director in October 2019. In this key leadership role, she supervises interprofessional teams and develops innovative models of care in the ambulatory setting including electronic consults and telehealth visits for patients.
Dr. Rivera received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and her MD from Jefferson Medical College. She completed her Family and Community Medicine residency at the University of California in San Francisco and her Geriatrics Medicine Fellowship at the University of California in San Francisco.
Past Recipients of the Clinician of the Year Award
2026 Veronica Rivera, MD, AGSF
2025 Rebecca Conant, MD
2024 Joyce Fogel, MD
2023 Shelley R. McDonald, DO, PhD, MCG
2022 Helen S. Kao, MD
2021 Faith Atai, MD
2020 James Lin, DO, MS, MHSA
2019 Kellie Flood, MD
2018 J. Eugene Lammers, MD, MPH, FACP, AGSF
2017 Fatima Sheikh, MD, CMD, MPH
2016 Lisa Tank, MD, FACP
2015 Ronald S. Duemler, MD, MS, CMD
2014 Pamela S. Tronetti, DO, AGSF
2013 Rosemary D. Laird, MD, MHSA
2012 Niharika N Suchak, MBBS, MHS, FACP
2011 Margaret A. Noel, MD
2010 Jerome Epplin, MD, AGSF
2009 Michelle S. Eslami, MD
2008 Valisa Saunders, MN, APRN, BC, GNP
2007 Rebecca D. Elon, MD, MPH
2006 F. Michael Gloth, II, MD, FACP
2005 Henry Schneiderman, MD, FACP
2004 Roy Bradford Whitney, Jr., MD
2003 Taylor Graves, MD
2002 Jerry M. Earll, MD
2001 Daniel Haimowitz, MD, FACP, CMD
2000 Steven C. Castle, MD
1999 Samuel C. Durso, MD
1998 Mary Ann Forciea, MD
1995 Mary A. Johnson-Crockett, MD
1994 Gary E. Applebaum, MD
1993 Francis Salerno, MD