Nicole Zhao

I am currently a second-year medical student at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. I am extremely interested in this opportunity as a medical student representative for AGEM as it combines my interests in emergency medicine with my passion for geriatric medicine. Having spent the last nine years as one of the primary caretakers for my grandmother with Alzheimer's Disease, I hope to continue advocating and improving the quality of care for these patients in the emergency room. The geriatric patient population is a considerable portion of patients seen in the ED, often requiring end-of-life care, and is highly underserved. With this opportunity, I hope to strike up critical conversations between students and AGEM mentors relating to topics on how we can promote better care in this patient population through leadership, advocacy, research, and projects that will systemically impact change. I have had exposure to EM, palliative, and geriatric medicine through my professional and personal experiences. In EM, I have led initiatives promoting the profession and advocating for more holistic care in underserved populations as the President of the EMIG at Stony Brook. In geriatrics/palliative medicine, I learned how underserved these populations are caring for my grandmother for the last nine years and my grandfather at the end of his life. I've also been a part of the PRIM-ER and EMPallA trials that aim to improve the identification of older patients in the ED with life-limiting illnesses and incorporate palliative care.