Thomas and Catherine Yoshikawa Award

Named in honor of Dr. Thomas T. Yoshikawa and his wife, Catherine—who together served the AGS and the geriatrics community for more than two decades—the Yoshikawa Award will offer recognition and financial support to emerging eldercare scholars who represent the early promise of the Yoshikawas’ own illustrious career. The award, which includes a $2,000 honorarium, has been supported through 2032 thanks to generous support from AGS members and countless friends and colleagues of the Dr. and Mrs. Yoshikawa.

2023 Recipient: Dae Kim, MD, MPH, ScD

The 2023 Thomas and Catherine Yoshikawa Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement in Clinical Investigation is awarded to Dae Kim, MD, MPH, ScD,  Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Associate Scientist at the Marcus Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife, and Attending Geriatrician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. 

The award will be presented at the AGS 2023 Annual Scientific Meeting (#AGS23), May 4-6 (pre-conference day May 3).  At the conference, Dr. Kim will deliver a lecture on Unleashing Frailty from Laboratory to Real World.

A geriatrician, epidemiologist, and large database researcher, Dr. Kim is an internationally recognized leader in the field of frailty research. He has developed a claims-based frailty score that has been widely adopted by pharmacoepidemiologists and health services researchers in the United States. Following his service as a member of an Advisory Task Force convened by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) and RAND Corporation in 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) incorporated his frailty claims-based index into the CMS data warehouse. Dr. Kim also has developed a web-based comprehensive geriatric assessment-based frailty index calculator, which demonstrated how the preoperative assessment of frailty can predict recovery and functional status after aortic valve replacement. The calculator has been incorporated into the electronic health record at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and is now disseminated for research and clinical applications at several healthcare systems in the United States. 

“Dr. Kim’s work in frailty is directly impacting clinical care including care provided by large primary care groups who use the claims-based frailty index to risk stratify the patients they serve for cost prediction and to track utilization and outcomes,” said AGS President G. Michael Harper, MD, AGSF. “He has catalyzed advances in decision-making around drug therapy, surgical procedures, and the use of health services in frail older adults. His focus on moving research from the laboratory into the real world exemplifies the Yoshikawas’ commitment to diffusing new knowledge into practice as his commitment to mentoring the next generation to grow and flourish as frailty investigators.” 

A recipient of the Paul Beeson Scholar Award from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), he has been the principal investigator on three and a co-investigator on ten R01 awards as well as a co-investigator on an R21. Dr. Kim is committed to developing and supporting the next generation of investigators who wish to focus their research on frailty. Through the Frailty Research Program that he founded at Hebrew SeniorLife Marcus Institute for Aging Research, he has mentored over thirty students, research fellows, and junior faculty, including six NIH K or similar career development awardees. He currently holds a K24 Mid-Career Mentoring Award for Patient-Oriented Research in Frailty and Health Outcomes.

An active member of the Society since 2006, Dr. Kim has served on several AGS committees, including the AGS Junior Faculty Interest Group Steering Committee and the AGS Research Methods Subcommittee of the AGS Research Committee. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and Gerontology, and as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Gerontology Medical Sciences

Past Recipients of the Thomas and Catherine Yoshikawa Outstanding Scientific Achievement for Clinical Investigation Award

2022   Amy S. Kelly, MD, MSHS
2020   Alexander Smith, MD, MS, MPH
2019   Amy Kind, MD, PhD
2018   Heather Whitson, MD, MHS
2017   Sei Lee, MD, MAS
2016   Mara Schonberg, MD, MPH
2015   Rebecca Sudore, MD
2014   XinQi Dong, MD, MPH
2013   Cynthia J. Brown, MD, MSPH
2012   Malaz A. Boustani, MD, MPH
2011   Catherine A. Sarkisian, MD, MSPH   
2010   Cynthia M. Boyd, MD, MPH
2009   Louise C. Walter, MD
2008   R. Sean Morrison, MD
2007   Eric A. Coleman, MD, MPH
2006   David J. Cassaret, MD, MS
2005   Joe Verghese, MBBS, MS
2004   Terri R. Fried, MD
2003   Edward Marcantonio, MD, Boston, MA
2002   James T. Pacala, MD, Minneapolis, MN
2001   Thomas M. Gill, MD, New Haven, CT
2001   Greg A. Sachs, MD, Chicago, IL
2000   Elizabeth Capezuti, PhD, RN

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