Dr. Tony Rosen MD ’10 was awarded the Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging by the National Institute on Aging and the American Federation for Aging Research for his groundbreaking research in elder abuse.
Dr. Tony Rosen
The Beeson Award program supports physician-scientists who are committed to advancing the study of geriatric health. The program helps these researchers become leaders in the field by providing financial awards and granting access to a distinguished network of more than 200 Beeson mentors and alumni. The program selects a limited number of junior faculty from medical schools nationwide and awards grants to conduct aging-related research.
Dr. Rosen, who specializes in geriatric emergency medicine, was a past GEM fellow at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and has a master’s degree in public health, was selected in September to receive $800,000 over the next five years to research elder abuse. Dr. Rosen plans to comprehensively analyze injury patterns and forensic biomarkers from victims of physical elder abuse, comparing them to injuries from unintentional fall victims in the NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Emergency Department, to improve understanding and increase the ability of emergency and other health care providers to identify, report, and intervene. Dr. Rosen hopes to become an independent researcher and academic leader in elder abuse and geriatric injury prevention research.
“For me, one of the exciting things about the Beeson Award is joining such an extraordinary community of scholars that is focused on collaboration,” said Dr. Rosen, an instructor in medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and emergency medicine physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. Dr. Rosen, who as a medical student participated in Medical Students Training in Aging Research (MSTAR), a mentoring program that pairs aspiring physicians with faculty mentors, is especially looking forward to continue working with his mentor, former Beeson awardee, Dr. Mark Lachs, co-chief of the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, the Irene F. and I. Roy Psaty Distinguished Professor of Clinical Medicine and professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Dr. Rosen’s research is highly collaborative, with the participation of colleagues in NewYork-Presbyterian’s Emergency Medical Services, nursing, social work, geriatrics, psychiatry, and radiology. According to Dr. Rosen, practicing in the emergency department “really requires working as part of a multi-disciplinary team.”
The Beeson award is a follow-up to Dr. Rosen’s GEMSSTAR grant, also from the National Institute on Aging, which enabled him to learn about injury patterns using legal case files to identify injury patterns suggestive of elder abuse. With the Beeson grant, he will expand this research and confirm these preliminary findings.
“I congratulate Dr. Rosen on this prestigious and well-deserved award,” said Dr. Rahul Sharma, chief of the Division of Emergency Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and emergency physician-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. “Dr. Rosen is an outstanding physician and scholar who has contributed to several advances in geriatric emergency medicine. His leading-edge research in the field of elder abuse is impressive, and I look forward to his future accomplishments as a Beeson scholar and leader in the field of geriatric injury prevention research.”
Elder abuse is common, has serious health consequences, and is associated with billions of dollars in healthcare costs. Yet it is under recognized by healthcare providers and infrequently reported to authorities.
The Beeson grant will also provide Dr. Rosen with additional formal training in forensic sciences and medicolegal investigation of death. He will gain policy-making expertise by attending the John A. Hartford Foundation Policy Institute in Washington D.C.
“Victims of elder abuse present to emergency medicine physicians commonly – but we’re treating their medical complaint and not identifying that they’re victims,” said Dr. Rosen. “With the Beeson Award, I hope to try to improve our ability as emergency medicine physicians to identify cases of abuse and to help these patients in the emergency department.”