Amy S. Kelly, MD, MSHS
Thomas and Catherine Yoshikawa Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement in Clinical Investigation will offer recognition and financial support to emerging eldercare scholars who represent the early promise of the Yoshikawas’ own illustrious career. This year’s awardee is Amy S. Kelly, MD, MSHS, Vice Chair of Health Policy and Faculty Development and Hermann Merkin Professor in Palliative Care in the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, and Senior Associate Dean for Gender Equity in Research Affairs at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
The award will be presented at the AGS 2022 Annual Scientific Meeting, where Dr. Kelley will be delivering a lecture on Embracing Complexity: A Geriatrician's Approach to Understanding Serious Illness.
Dr. Kelley’s work focuses on advancing the care of older adults by improving care quality in the context of serious illness and promoting healthcare services and policies that help align treatment with patient needs and values.
She has received support from the National Palliative Care Research Center, Brookdale Leadership in Aging Fellowship, the NIA-sponsored Beeson Scholars Award, and current R01, P01 and K24 awards. She has also completed and disseminated the results of many patient-oriented research projects and has become a nationally visible contributor in the field of aging and palliative care research.
Dr. Kelley has introduced several crucial innovations to aging-focused health services research in areas of work previously completed primarily by medical economists. First, she has changed the paradigm of how we account for costs. In addition to only considering costs paid by Medicare or insurers, she has insisted on a patient-centered view of costs that considers out of pocket expenses and the enormous labor provided by family caregivers. Second, she has changed the paradigm of cost determinants, considering not just medical diagnoses, but geriatric measures including function and cognition. Third, her work has examined the benefits and burdens of medical expenditures by considering the higher cost and increase in care needs at the end of life.
Her approach has had multiplicative effects, because it has been replicated by dozens of Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) researchers, and because of her extensive and generous commitment to mentoring at Mount Sinai and nationally.
Through the course of her work, Dr. Kelley has mentored many students, fellows and junior faculty, with an emphasis on women and investigators from populations underrepresented in science, who have disseminated their research through national presentations and peer-reviewed publications and received awards and grants for their scholarship. She is a two-time honoree as “Clinician of the Year” from graduating fellows at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai.
Past Recipients of the Thomas and Catherine Yoshikawa Outstanding Scientific Achievement for Clinical Investigation Award
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