Highlighting Career Pathways and Leaders in Geriatric Emergency Medicine
Watch the SAEM Academy of Geriatric Emergency Medicine (AGEM) webinar, where we discuss some career pathways in geriatric emergency medicine, including research, education, clinical, and administration. We also illustrate how many people wear different hats in the field and discuss the crossover and diversity of the specialty. This panel discussion closes with a Q&A session. If you are curious about the field, want to learn more, or are already established, check out the webinar!
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Shan Liu, MD, SD
Associate Professor, Emergency Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Shan W. Liu, MD, SD, is an associate professor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the Geriatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship Director and attending physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. She co-leads the Geriatric Emergency Department Guidelines project, is a past-President of AGEM, and has served on the executive boards of the IFEM and ACEP geriatric sections. She is the author of the award-winning illustrated children's book Masked Hero: How Wu Lien-teh Invented the Mask and Ended an Epidemic, a story about how her great-grandfather invented the first respirator mask.
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Manish Shah, MD, MPH
Azita G. Hamedani Distinguished Chair of Emergency Medicine
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Manish Shah, MD, MPH, is Professor and Chair of the BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, where he holds the Azita G. Hamedani Distinguished Chair of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Shah is a national leader in prehospital and geriatric emergency medicine research. His efforts, with funding from NIH, AHRQ, CDC, and HRSA, have helped establish the field of geriatric emergency medicine and advanced the role of paramedics to support community health efforts. He is passionate about developing the next generation of emergency care researchers and research leaders. He led the NIH-funded KL2 Career Development Award program until 2022 and is a mentor on numerous NIH and AHRQ career development awards. Dr. Shah is the Immediate Past President of the SAEM Foundation (SAEMF). -
Rachel M. Skains, MD, MSPH
Assistant Professor
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Dr. Skains is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine (EM) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) with a joint faculty position at the Birmingham VA Medical Center (BVAMC). After graduating from Wake Forest School of Medicine (2016), she completed her EM residency at UAB (2019) followed by a Clinical Research Fellowship focused on Geriatric EM while pursuing a Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH) in Clinical and Translational Science from the UAB School of Public Health (2021). Dr. Skains was awarded the AHRQ NRSA T32 Postdoctoral Scholar Fellowship in the UAB Health Services Research Training Program (2020-2022), in addition to funding through the UAB Integrative Center for Aging Research (ICAR), Geriatric Emergency care Applied Research (GEAR) 1.0, NIA Grants for Early Medical/Surgical Specialists' Transition to Aging Research (GEMSSTAR) R03 (2023-2025), Exploratory/ Developmental Grant R21 (2023-2025), and GEMSSTAR for EM Supplemental Funding Program through SAEMF/EMF to examine the risk of adverse health outcomes, such as delirium, with potentially inappropriate medication use among older adults in the ED. In addition, Dr. Skains was an ED physician champion for the UAB – Highlands and BVAMC Geriatric ED Committees, which received Level 1 (2021) and Level 3 (2023) accreditations respectively, completed the UAB Geriatric Scholar Interprofessional Program (2019-2021), updated the Geriatric ED Guidelines 2.0 in Medication Safety, published the first expert consensus-based list of high-risk prescriptions for older ED patients (GEMS-Rx), and serves as Member-at-Large for the SAEM Academy of Geriatric Emergency Medicine (AGEM) (2024-2026).
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Surriya Ahmad, MD
Attending Physician
New York
Surriya Ahmad, MD, completed a five year combined Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine residency at the State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University and Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, NY, and is double board certified in Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine. She completed a Geriatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship at Weill Cornell/New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. She has been a member of SAEM and AGEM for five years, serving on the AGEM Executive Committee for three years, and is the current Secretary of AGEM. Between taking care of patients in public inner-city Level 1 Trauma Centers and Tertiary Care Centers in Brooklyn and New York over the last seven years, and through her experience spending time with her father and grandmother, she grew more interested in how to best optimize the care of older adults in the ED, including prioritizing communication with patients and families, comfort-mental and physical, and overall experience and wellness.
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Katie Buck, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor
The Ohio State University
Katie Buck, MD, MPH, is an assistant professor at Ohio State University and Director of the Level 1 Geriatric Emergency Department. 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 ED patients with current work on pneumonia. She has been involved in geriatric EM and AGEM since she was an undergraduate student.