Learn More About AGS’ and ADGAP’s New Board Members

Charles Cefalu, MD, MS, AGSF; Debra Saliba, MD, MPH; and Margaret "Meg" Wallhagen, PhD, GNP-BC, AGSF, FAAN, joined the American Geriatrics Society's Board of Directors during the Society's Annual Scientific Meeting in May. During the meeting, James T. Pacala, MD, MS, and Sally Brooks, MD, began their second terms on the Board. James Campbell, MD, MS, and Suzanne Fields, MD, joined the Association of Directors of Geriatric Academic Programs' (ADGAP) Board of Directors. And Charles Cefalu MD, MS, Seth Landefeld, MD, and Mark Supiano, MD were re-elected to second terms on the ADGAP Board.

New AGS Board Members

Dr. Cefalu is Professor and Associate Chairman of Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans. An active member of the AGS for 30 years and of COSAR for 12, Dr. Cefalu has played a range of important roles in these organizations. For the past six years, he has served as a mentor to students in the AGS' Mentors Program. He served as Chair (2004-2007) and is currently a member of the Abstracts Review Committee for Case Studies (2007-present) and was a member of the Clinical Practice Committee for two terms (1999-2005). He was the first AGS Public Policy Fellow, has chaired the Special Interest Group on Disaster Preparedness since 2005, and has been an AGS' representative to the American Medical Association's House of Delegates since 2008. Dr. Cefalu is a Co-Chair of COSAR and is a past board member (1999-2002). He is past President of the Louisiana Geriatrics Society, of which he is currently Executive Director. Dr. Cefalu has also served as an academic member of ADGAP, and was appointed to a second term with the organization in May. He has been a reviewer for the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS) and has been a member of the Advisory Board of Annals of Long- Term Care since 1999.

Debra Saliba, MD, MPH -- Director of the UCLA Borun Center for Gerontological Research, a physician with the Veteran's Administration GRECC, and a Senior Natural Scientist at the RAND Corporation -- has been an active member of the AGS since 1996. She was appointed to the Clinical Practice and Models of Care Committee in 2002 and served as Vice Chair (2004-2006) before becoming Chair in 2007. Through her work with AGS' committees, she has participated in abstract, SWAT and policy guideline reviews, including reviews of AGS' hip fracture and stroke guidelines, and a patient information brochure on neuropathy (2003). She also helped develop the Society's Guidelines for Improving the Care of the Older Person with Diabetes Mellitus (2003). Dr. Saliba was a participant in the AGS' Strategic Planning Workgroup (2005), Public Policy Planning Summits (2008 and 2009), and Committee Restructuring Workgroup (2005). She serves as a faculty mentor in the Fellows and Junior Faculty Mentoring Program (2004 - present) and has published widely and been a member of several panels focusing on home health quality measures and quality long-term care.

Margaret "Meg" Wallhagen, PhD, GNP-BC, AGSF, FAAN, a gerontological nurse practitioner, professor of gerontological nursing at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and director of the university's John A. Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence, has been a member of the AGS for nearly 20 years. Dr. Wallhagen has been a member of the Ethnogeriatrics Committee (1999-2002) and was a representative to the Clinical Practice Committee, reviewing and facilitating the development of guidelines and policies. In 2003, Dr. Wallhagen became a liaison to the Public Policy Committee and served on the AGS' Advisory/Editorial Committee, assisting with the launch of the Society's web-based public education portal, wwww.healthinaging.org. In 2007, she officially joined the reorganized Public Policy Committee, of which she is currently Vice-Chair. Dr. Wallhagen is a 2009-2010 Atlantic Philanthropies Health and Aging Policy Fellow. The program is designed to provide participants with the experience and skills necessary to help shape policy in ways that improve care for older adults. Her policy work focuses on hearing loss and how it affects the lives of older adults and their families.

Learn more about the AGS Board online: http://www.americangeriatrics.org/about_us/who_we_are/board_of_directors/.

New ADGAP Board Members

James Campbell, MD, recently elected to the Board of the Association of Directors of ADGAP, is Center Director for Geriatrics for the MetroHealth System, and professor of Family Medicine, School of Medicine, at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Dr. Campbell was a Partner Geriatrician on the Geriatrics Education for Specialists (GSR) Grant (2003-2005) and a Geriatrics Education for Specialists-Dissemination Grant (DG) (2008-2009). As a Partner Geriatrician on the GSR program, Dr. Campbell collaborated with surgeons in Emergency Medicine, General Surgery, Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology to integrate geriatrics into surgical and related specialty residency training. He is a member of the AGS' Healthcare for Low-Income Seniors and Family Physicians in Geriatrics special interest groups. Dr. Campbell is involved in training medical students and students in other specialties, including OB/GYN, Internal Medicine, and Family Medicine. Through his work with Case Western's Weatherhead School of Management, he developed a toolkit designed to assess the economic value of geriatrics. With his help, he assisted the growth of their program to a nearly 33 million dollar program.

Suzanne Fields, MD is Chief of the Division of Geriatrics and General Internal Medicine and Professor of Clinical Medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Dr. Fields also serves as medical director of a large teaching nursing home affiliated with Stony Brook and as the director of the Long Island Geriatric Education Center Consortium. She has been a geriatric medicine fellowship director for more than 15 years and has contributed to the AGS' Fellowship Training Subcommittee (2004-2006) and Subcommittee on ACGME Requirements for Geriatric Medicine Fellowships (2007-2010). She is a past member of the AGS Education Committee (2002-2005) and new member of the Health Systems Innovation-Economics and Technology Committee. Since 2005, she has served as a Mentor to trainees and fellows at AGS' annual meeting. She was named an ADGAP/Hartford Senior Leadership Scholar in the first cohort of funding in 2007. She has also been a reviewer and Associate Editor of Abstracts for JAGS (2000-present). Her research interests include the role of electronic records in improving transitional care and she has coordinated symposia and workshops for national meetings on the topic, including an AGS symposium on Electronic Medical Records (EMR) in Geriatric Care in 2007.

Learn more about the ADGAP Board online: http://adgap.americangeriatrics.org/directors_new.php.