AGEISM in Emergency Medicine

5 minute intro Shan Liu, AGEM Past-President

Moderator Alden Landry, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Assistant Dean, Office for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership, Harvard Medical School. ADIEM President

15 min Ageism, Anita Rohra, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine

15 min Elderspeak, Lauren Cameron-Comasco, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Beaumont School of Medicine

15 min Ageism and Covid, Anita Chary, Assistant Professor, Baylor College of Medicine

10 Question and answer Alden Landry

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  Anita Chary, MD, PhD

  Anita Chary, MD, PhD, is an emergency physician and health services researcher at Baylor College of Medicine. She attended Washington University School of Medicine and served as chief resident at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency. Dr. Chary is an anthropologist whose research focuses on health disparities and healthcare delivery for vulnerable populations. Her international work includes development of child nutrition, women’s health, and specialty care referral programs in rural areas, and her domestic work centers on geriatric emergency medicine.

   
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  Lauren Cameron-Comasco, MD

  Lauren Cameron-Comasco, MD, FACEP, 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, where she completed her fellowship in Geriatric Emergency Medicine.

  Dr. Cameron-Comasco’s interests lie in geriatric emergency medicine education and the enhancement of older adult care in the Emergency Department. Beaumont’s Emergency Department, one of the top 20 busiest emergency departments by volume in the country, achieved Level 2 Geriatric Emergency Department Accreditation from the American College of Emergency Physicians under her leadership. She has studied the operational effects of implementing a Geriatric Emergency Department and her work has been presented nationally. She is the current President-elect of the Academy of Geriatric Emergency Medicine and has served on the Executive Committee since 2018.

   
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  Alden M. Landry, MD, MPH

  Immediate Past President

  Dr. Landry is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Faculty Assistant Director of the Office for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership, Associate Director and Advisor for William B. Castle Society, and Director of Health Equity Education at Harvard Medical School. He also serves as Senior Faculty at the Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and is the founder and co-director of the non- profit organization Motivating Pathways. He strives to lead efforts for the Department of Emergency Medicine, the hospital and the medical school that will address health disparities and improve quality of care for the most disenfranchised.

  In addition to his clinical interests, Dr. Landry is involved in research on Emergency Department utilization trends, disparities in care and quality of care. He also co-instructs a course at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and teaches cultural competency to residents and physicians. Dr. Landry promotes careers in the health professions to under-represented minorities and mentors, scores of pre-medical students, medical students, residents, fellows and junior faculty. Dr. Landry also leads the Tour for Diversity in Medicine, (www.tour4diversity.org) an effort to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in medicine, dentistry, and other biomedical careers.

  Dr. Landry has been recognized by his peers and colleagues as a leader in health equity and social justice. He has received numerous awards for his public health work and efforts to promote health care workforce diversity. He was recently awarded the Outstanding Academician Award by the Academy for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Medicine of the Society of Academic Emergency medicine and the Albert Frechette Award from the Massachusetts Public Health Association.

  Dr. Landry received his Bachelor of Science degree from Prairie View A&M University in 2002 and his medical degree from the University of Alabama in 2006. He completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in 2009. In 2010, he earned a Master’s in Public Health degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and completed the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Minority Health Policy at Harvard University. He received the Disparities Solutions Center/Aetna Fellow in Health Disparities award in 2010-2011.

   
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  Anita Rohra, MD

  Dr. Anita Rohra is the Director of Simulation and Assistant Program Director in charge of education for the Department of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). She obtained her medical degree from State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate in 2010 and completed her emergency medicine residency at New York Presbyterian Queens in 2013. She completed an Emergency Ultrasound Fellowship at BCM in 2014 and began her career as emergency ultrasound faculty, focusing on emergency ultrasound simulation. Dr. Rohra was lead faculty for diversity in her department from 2016 to 2019 and established a group promoting women in leadership within the department.  Her success in these roles led to promotion to her current position as the Director of Simulation for the Department of Emergency Medicine. Her interests include simulation debriefing, resuscitation communication, diversity in emergency medicine, and bias in clinical decision-making.