UT Houston launches geriatric training with $3.25 million in grant, matc...(ton and the medical school and director ...),Health

Dyer, chief of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine at LBJ General Hospital and director of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine at Memorial Hermann TMC, is a nationally recognized expert in elder care. She participated in the 2005 White House Conference on Aging, has testified before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee and is one of the authors of Elder Abuse Detection and Intervention.

The Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine was established in the medical school's Department of Internal Medicine in 2007. The faculty includes five physicians and three geriatrics nurse practitioners. A geriatrics fellowship program began in July 2008.

"The entire division is made up of dedicated and energetic faculty and staffall of whom will be a part of carrying out various aspects of this grant," Dyer said.

In 2007, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services funded the UT Health Science Center at Houston's Geriatric Education Center (HGEC), which in addition to the medical school, involves faculty from The University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston, The University of Texas School of Public Health, the school of health information sciences and the Center on Aging. Under the direction of Dyer and Ostwald, the HGEC focuses on educating faculty and students to provide quality care to the most vulnerable elderly people.

A house call program under the direction of Susan Gorman, M.S.N., R.N.C., instructor of medicine, was established in 2007 and an Acute Care of Elders (ACE) unit at Memorial Hermann TMC under the direction of Nasiya Ahmed, M.D., assistant professor of internal medicine, was created in September 2008.

"There is an acute shortage of geriatricians to meet local needs, much less to care for older patients from across the nation and abroad who seek medi
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