Meet the AGEM Leaders!

President - Lauren Cameron Comasco, MD

Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine; Director of Geriatric Emergency Medicine and Fellowship

• Affiliation: Beaumont Health System, Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine
• Academic interest: geriatric emergency care, cognitive impairment, operations, resident education​

Dr. Cameron-Comasco is Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine. She is the Director of Geriatric Emergency Medicine and the Geriatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship Director at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, MI. Dr. Cameron-Comasco received her medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine and completed her residency at Henry Ford Hospital, where she served as Chief Resident. After residency, she joined the Department of Emergency Medicine at Beaumont Royal Oak and completed her fellowship in Geriatric Emergency Medicine. Beaumont's ED was Accredited as a Level 2 Geriatric Emergency Department under her leadership. She has studied the operational effects of implementing a Geriatric Emergency Department. Her interests lie in geriatric emergency medicine education and the optimization of older adult care in the Emergency Department.

President-Elect - Liz Goldberg, MD, ScM

• Affiliation: University of Colorado, Denver
• Academic interest: geriatric fall prevention, digital health
• Current or prior funding: GEMSSTAR R03, BEESON K76

Dr. Goldberg is a board-certified emergency physician and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine. She completed her internship, residency, and chief residency at Brown University. She is a graduate of the post-doctoral research fellowship at the Center of Gerontology and Healthcare Research at Brown University (AHRQ T32) and Masters of Epidemiology (ScM) program.

Her research interests lie at the intersection of aging and emergency medicine. She has lead state wide and national initiatives to improve population health funded by the National Institutes of Health, foundations, professional societies, and payors. As the principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health-funded fall prevention study for older adults in the emergency department (GAPcare-the Geriatric Acute and Post-Acute Fall Prevention Intervention), she developed and tested a multidisciplinary intervention that significantly reduced fall-related ED visits for older adults. For GAPcare, she brought together a team of pharmacists and physical therapists to provide medication therapy management and fall risk assessments to older adults seeking emergency care after a fall. She is currently funded by a Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging (National Institutes of Health, NIA K76) to evaluate whether the Apple Watch can enhance fall outcome assessment and linkage as part of the GAPcare intervention. She is the co-creator of MyCovidRisk.app, a risk assessment and mitigation tool that was used over 1 Million times prior to vaccination being available.

Dr. Goldberg is passionate about expanding the physician scientist pipeline, and has mentored many faculty, fellows, residents, and students. She was the inaugural Associate Director of the Accelerated MPH for Clinicians program at the Brown School of Public Health.

Secretary - Kalpana Narayan Shankar, MD, MSc, MS

Bio coming soon!

Treasurer - Surriya Colleen Ahmad, MD

I am originally from Louisville, KY, graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, GA with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Spanish, and received my Doctorate of Medicine from University of Louisville in Louisville, KY. I completed my combined Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine residency at the State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University (SUNY DHSU) and Kings County Hospital Center (KCHC) in Brooklyn, NY. I completed my Geriatric Emergency Medicine (GEM) Fellowship at Weill Cornell/New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. I am currently an Attending Physician at Bellevue Hospital Center and Clinical Faculty in the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine at NYU Langone Hospitals in New York City.

I have been a member of SAEM and AGEM for three years, and have particularly enjoyed working with the AGEM Outreach Committee. In December 2020 I co-organized and co-hosted a Leaders in GEM virtual event with the aim of generating early interest in GEM amongst medical students and residents and helping to connect them with mentors who have been successful in the field. I served on the AGEM Executive Committee as a Member At Large. I am honored to be Treasurer for AGEM this year.

Between taking care of patients in both a public inner-city Level 1 Trauma Center and Tertiary care center in residency and having an octogenarian father and nonagenarian grandmother who I have watched navigate the sometimes treacherous walls of an Emergency Department from the lens of a patient their age, I grew interested in how we can best optimize the care of older adults in the ED. In addition, my interest areas lie in using novel tools to improve communication with older adults, screening for geriatric depression in older adults who come into the Emergency Department, decreasing loneliness and social isolation in this population, health disparities in geriatric patients, physician wellness, streamlining transitions of care, geriatric ED accreditation best care practices, as well as enhancing diversity in the field of Geriatric Emergency Medicine.

Immediate Past President - Scott M. Dresden, MD, MS

• Affiliation: Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
• Academic Interests: Geriatrics, Care Transitions, Dementia, Delirium
• Current and Prior Funding (PI only): AHRQ R01, GEAR Pilot Award (NIA R33), GEMSSTAR R03, Emergency Medicine Foundation
  

Dr. Dresden is an emergency physician and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine.  He completed medical school at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and residency at Boston Medical Center.  His fellowship in Health Services and Outcomes Research was at Northwestern University where he also earned his Masters of Science in Health Services and Outcomes Research.

He is the director of the Geriatric Emergency Department Innovations (GEDI) program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.  He is interested in all things geriatric emergency medicine, including transitions of care, delirium, and dementia. His current project funded by AHRQ is evaluating the impact of care by Transitional Care Nurses and a multidisciplinary healthcare team on health services use and patient outcomes including health related quality of life for older adults in the ED. He is the leader of the Research Core of the Geriatric Emergency care Applied Reasearch (GEAR) 2.0 Advancing Dementia Care program. Additionally he is leading a GEAR pilot award which seeks to identify older adults at risk for developing delirium in the ED and identifying different phenotypes of delirium in the ED.

Member-at-Large - Fernanda Bellolio, MD, MS

• Affiliation: Professor of Emergency Medicine; of Health Sciences Research, Division of Health Care Policy and Research; and of Medicine, Division of Community Internal Medicine, Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Section of Geriatric Medicine at Mayo Clinic
• Academic Interests and current funding: Over my career I have conducted multiple observational and interventional studies. I am the site-principal investigator for the R18 AHRQ funded study IDEA-LL: Improving Diagnosis in Emergency and Acute Care: A Learning Laboratory; PI for REDEEM: REcognizing DElirium in Emergency Medicine to prospectively study delirium in the Emergency Department; site-PI for the U24 Network for Emergency Care Clinical Trials: Strategies to Innovate EmeRgENcy Care Clinical Trials Network (SIREN); site co-PI for NIH StrokeNet, a NINDS funded multicenter network for the study of neurological diseases; site-PI for the UG3/UH3 study PRIM-ER: Primary Palliative Care for Emergency Medicine; and Co-I for the U01 Center for Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI) program, a collaboration between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and academic institutions.
  

I have a Master’s in Clinical Research and Translational Sciences and completed a 3-year post-doctoral program on Healthcare Delivery dedicated to secondary data analysis, research methodology, and evidence-based medicine as a Kern Scholar at the Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery. Over my career, I have dedicated a significant effort toward clinical research, evidence-based medicine, patient centered care, neurological emergencies, geriatric medicine, and more recently implementation through National clinical guidelines development.

Member-at-Large - Katie Hunold Buck, MD

• Affiliation: Ohio State University
• Academic interest: diagnostic accuracy, infectious disease (pneumonia) in older adults
• Current or prior funding: GEMSSTAR R03, BEESON K76

Dr. Buck is an Assistant Professor at Ohio State University and Director of the Level 1 Geriatric ED. She received her medical degree from the University of Virginia and completed EM residency and a Research Fellowship at Ohio State University. She is a current NIA Beeson K76 award recipient. Her research focus is improving diagnostic accuracy in older adult emergency department patients with current work on pneumonia. She has been involved in geriatric emergency medicine and AGEM since she was an undergraduate student.

Member-at-Large - Mary Mulcare, MD

Clinical Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine

• Affiliation: Weill Cornell Medicine
• Academic interest: Virtual specialty care

Mary Mulcare, MD, FACEP, completed her medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Upon graduation from EM residency at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and completing her Chief year in 2012, she did a fellowship in Geriatric Emergency Medicine (GEM) at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Her research focused on designing a multi-phased approach to protocol development and implementation in the ED, focusing specifically on indwelling urinary catheters in older adults. She has previously held various leadership roles in residency, fellowship and medical student education. Dr. Mulcare is currently the Chief Medical Officer for Summus Global, the leading virtual specialty care platform, quickly and efficiently connecting members with high quality medical expertise across the nation.

Member-at-Large - Tessa Ringer, MD, JD, CCFP

Bio coming soon!

Resident Representative - Kyle R. Burton, MD, MPP

• Affiliation: Johns Hopkins Hospital
• Academic interest: Geriatrics, Care Transitions, SNFs, PACE, Geriatric Trauma

Dr. Burton currently trains with the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine Residency. Prior to residency, he attended Harvard Medical School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government as a dual-degree Center for Public Leadership Sheila C. Johnson Fellow. While an undergraduate student at Howard University, he was awarded the English-Speaking Union Luard-Morse fellowship to study biochemistry at the University of Oxford for an academic year. He currently is dedicated to improving care coordination between emergency departments and skilled nursing facilities, along with enhancing geriatric trauma education.

Medical Student Representative - Sarah E. Pajka

• Affiliation: Ohio State University College of Medicine
• Academic interest: Geriatrics, End of Life Communication, Advance Care Planning

Sarah Pajka is a fourth year medical student at the Ohio State University College of Medicine and is currently in the process of interviewing for Emergency Medicine residency. She completed an undergraduate degree in the History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health at Yale University. So far, her research has focused on care transitions, advance care planning communication for older adults in the emergency department, and the use of behavioral theory to guide advance care planning interventions for vulnerable older adults in other settings. She hopes to continue expanding upon this work to improve care for the growing population of older adults in the ED.