Mark S. Lachs, MD, MPH and Ronald D. Adelman, MD, Co-Chiefs
History
The Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology, part of the Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University, was founded in 1996. The Irving Sherwood Wright Center on Aging (WC), the centerpiece of the Division's outpatient clinical activities, provides interdisciplinary outpatient geriatric primary medical care. Members of the care team include physicians, a gero-psychiatrist, a geriatric social worker, and geriatric nurse practitioners. Through its House Call Program, the Division provides primary care medical services to homebound older adults, who for reasons of chronic disease or mobility impairment cannot travel to the Wright Center.
The Division also provides care to older adults through two significant in-patient care initiatives at New York-Presbyterian Hospital: 1) an Acute Care for the Elderly (ACE) Unit delivers state-of-the art inpatient care; and 2) the inpatient Palliative Care Consultation Service is an interdisciplinary team focusing on relief of symptoms and stress of serious illness, whatever the diagnosis.
The Fellowship Program in Geriatric Medicine, begun in 1998, provides a two-year course of training utilizing nationally recognized academic and clinical resources. The goals of the Fellowship Program are to train physicians with residency background in internal medicine or family practice to be exceptional and caring clinicians and to become future leaders in geriatric medicine. The fellowship focuses on interdisciplinary clinical training in geriatric medicine and development of teaching and research skills.
Mission and Goals
The Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology is dedicated to improving the quality of life for older people through the integration of high quality clinical care, teaching geriatric medicine to clinical trainees, and advancing knowledge through scientific research.
Our mission is to continue to create and sustain strong, vibrant, and innovative educational, clinical, and research programs in geriatric medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell. Our mission is to integrate the principles of geriatric care into every day practice; to offer disciplinary-specific training, interdisciplinary training and services to geriatric patients that improve their health and well being. Our focus on mental health care in geriatric medical practice is a core mission of the Division of Geriatrics. Our mission is to extend the reach of geriatric care to health professional trainees and disciplines that currently do not utilize or underutilize geriatric care principles and practice. Our mission is also to continue to incorporate geriatric care into all clinical areas and create a workable and sustainable model for providing these services throughout the medical center.
The Division of Geriatrics has far reaching educational, clinical and research activities. We have a intensive role in training Weil-Cornell medical students, medical residents and fellows training to become geriatricians. From the clinical perspective, the Division runs its own inpatient geriatrics unit, the ACE Unit (Acute Care for the Elderly), as well as the Geriatrics Consultation Service and the Palliative Care Consultation Service for adult patients of all ages. In addition, we provide primary care to community residing older people at the Wright Center on Aging. We also have a House Call Program which provides in-home medical care for homebound older patients.
From a research perspective, we have an NIH Roybal Center on Aging which fosters the investigation of pain and palliative care in later life and also coordinates research growth and development among several partnering institutions including Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Hospital for Special Surgery, and Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. In addition, the Division has collaborated with multiple agencies in NYC to create the NYC Elder Abuse Center and has many active research projects in this area. Other major areas of research include integrating mental health care into primary care geriatrics, studying communication between older patients and their health professionals, and investigating transitions in care.
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