Ellen Flaherty, PhD, APRN, AGSF
The AGS announced that Ellen Flaherty, PhD, APRN, AGSF, an assistant professor at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine and director of the Dartmouth Centers for Health & Aging, will deliver the society’s prestigious Henderson State-of-the-Art Lecture. Following the cancellation of the AGS 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the AGS announced that Dr. Flaherty would deliver her talk, Leveraging the Potential of Interprofessional Teams in Primary Care Practice, at the AGS 2021 Annual Scientific Meeting (#AGS21) in Chicago, Ill. (May 12-15, 2021).
Dr. Flaherty herself is no stranger to the growing power and prominence of interprofessional collaboration. In 2016, she assumed responsibilities as AGS president—the second nurse member to hold the position in the society’s 77-year history. Dr. Flaherty now serves as a co-principal investigator for both the Northern New England Geriatric Education Center (NNEGEC)—part of the federally sponsored Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP)—and The John A. Hartford Foundation GWEP Coordinating Center administered by the AGS.
Powered by the Health Resources and Services Administration, the GWEP is the principal federal mechanism for supporting local solutions to the shortage of geriatrics health professionals across the U.S. NNEGEC in particular is helping to improve health and quality of life for older adults in New Hampshire and Vermont, with a focus on training different health professionals to collaborate as an outlet for serving more patients. The GWEP Coordinating Center works to share insights gleaned not just in New England but also among all the country’s GWEPs, expanding the scope of a program with local roots but national reach.
Both efforts have interprofessional expertise at their cores—which is no surprise since Dr. Flaherty has spent much of her career advancing the art and science of collaboration in care. Before joining Dartmouth, for example, Dr. Flaherty spent nearly 30 years working to advance clinical practice at the New York University (NYU) College of Nursing/Hartford Institute in New York.
At NYU, Dr. Flaherty directed the Adult/Geriatric Nurse Practitioner program and championed the NYU World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center. Through the center, Dr. Flaherty served as a member of the WHO Task Force on Aging and traveled throughout Central and South America to help embed geriatric content into nursing programs globally.
An AGS member since 1998, Dr. Flaherty earned her doctoral degree in nursing from NYU and her master’s in nursing from Stony Brooke University in N.Y. She has published numerous peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and has been a lead editor for the AGS’s Geriatric Nursing Review Syllabus.
Edward Henderson, MD, namesake of the Henderson State-of-the-Art Lecture, was a beloved and respected geriatrician who served the AGS in several capacities, most notably as President, Vice President, and Executive Director. For more than two decades, Dr. Henderson’s devoted efforts on behalf of the AGS made him an international authority in human aging and geriatric medicine. The Edward Henderson Award is one of several honors conferred by the AGS at its Annual Scientific Meeting.
Past Recipients of the Edward Henderson Award
2019 Laura Mosqueda, MD, AGSF
2018 Bruce Leff, MD, AGSF
2017 Richard Allman, MD
2016 Christopher Callahan, MD
2015 Robert M. Palmer, MD, MPH
2014 Michael W. Rich, MD
2013 Diane E. Meier, MD
2012 David B. Reuben, MD
2011 Mary E. Tinetti, MD
2010 Sharon K. Inouye, MD, MPH
2009 Mary Naylor, RN, PhD
2008 Linda P. Fried, MD
2007 Joseph T. Hanlon, PharmD, MS
2006 Walter Willet, MD
2005 Jeffrey Cummings, MD
2004 Edward Wagner, MD
2003 Vincent Mor, PhD
2002 David T. Felson, MD
2001 Mahlon R. DeLong, MD
2000 Bruce Vladeck, MD