Dr. Tony Rosen, an assistant professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and an attending emergency physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, has been named the recipient of this year’s Jeffrey H. Silverstein Memorial Award for Emerging Investigators in the Surgical and Related Medical Specialties.
The award, established in 2017 by the American Geriatrics Society, recognizes junior and mid-career investigators whose research focuses on geriatrics.
Dr. Rosen was recognized for his and his colleagues’ comprehensive, systematic literature review of published programs established to combat elder mistreatment. The team focused on programs that integrate hospitals – which can provide intervention assistance and referrals – and are implemented in low-resource environments. While various types of elder abuse initiatives have existed for several decades, previous literature reviews have found very few impactful ones.
Dr. Tony Rosen. Credit: Weill Cornell Medicine Art and Photography.
Looking at more than 3,000 programs in a broad range of databases, the researchers categorized them into several sub-types, ranging from educational efforts to legal services. Dr. Rosen and his colleagues found that many programs developed to combat elder abuse focused on intervention, raising awareness and developing healthcare teams that are prepared to tackle the challenges of abuse. Ultimately, they identified 116 articles about 115 programs dedicated to fighting elder abuse, with 43 percent having high potential to assist low-resource communities.
“I am thrilled that this research is being recognized,” Dr. Rosen said. “This award would not be possible if not for the incredible mentorship that I’ve been lucky enough to receive and the efforts of many extraordinary people in the Weill Cornell Medicine’s Divisions of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, and Emergency Medicine.”
Dr. Rosen, who specializes in geriatric emergency medicine, has spent years exploring new ways to improve the quality of care for older adults in emergency departments. His research focuses on elder abuse and injury prevention for older adults, including ways to help healthcare providers better identify, intervene in and prevent cases of abuse and mistreatment amongst this population.
“One in 10 community-dwelling older adults are victims of abuse every year. We think the emergency room is a good place to identify this and begin intervention,” said Dr. Rosen, who is also a past recipient of the Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging by the National Institute on Aging and the American Federation for Aging Research.
The American Geriatrics Society is a nonprofit organization of geriatrics healthcare professionals that aims to improve the quality of life of older people. Dr. Rosen presented his research and received the award, which included a $2,000 prize, at the society’s 2018 Annual Scientific Meeting on May 4 in Orlando, Florida.