Dr. Andrea Bial is focused on the comprehensive geriatric assessment and cancer in the older patient. She has researched and presented on such topics as depression in prostate cancer patients, cancer screening in the elderly, and the assessment of cognitive disorders in the oncology literature. She co-coordinates the annual Geriatric-Oncology conference, which involves both local and national leaders speaking on advances in geriatric-oncology. She is also actively involved in teaching the geriatric assessment to medical students, housestaff and fellows of both geriatrics and geriatric-oncology. She and Dr. Mariam Rodin also precept the geriatric-oncology fellows at the Cancer Survivor’s Clinic.

Dr. Daniel Brauner is focused on interdisciplinary approaches to medical and ethical issues primarily as they affect older people. He is interested in the field of linguistics in an effort to seek novel approaches to improving communication with persons with dementia. Currently he is developing a method for evaluating decision-making capacity in persons with dementia based on linguistics theory and discourse analysis. Another area of interest has been how the presence of dementia affects care of nondementia illnesses.

Dr. Deon Cox-Hayley is interested in end of life care and particularly, in the transition to palliative care. She has been involved in developing and disseminating model end-of-life programs such as end of life care for patients with dementia. She now directs the PEACE clinic, with a team of experts in symptom management, for outpatient consultations in palliative care for any elderly person with a limited life expectancy

Dr. William Dale is focused on medical decision-making, preventive care, and quality of life in the elderly. More specifically, his research is in the area of decision-making in prostate cancer, with a focus on anxiety related to screening, diagnosis, and treatment. He is actively interested in interdisciplinary research, particularly research that integrates medicine with the social sciences. He will be helping develop programs that nurture the growth of interdisciplinary research in medicine and geriatrics, exemplified by his work with Drs. David Meltzer and Godfrey Getz in building the MD-PhD program in Medicine, the Arts, and Social Sciences.

Dr. Catherine DuBeau has been actively engaged in teaching, management, and research regarding urinary incontinence (UI) and lower urinary tract disorders in older persons for over 12 years. Her work includes diagnostic issues in benign prostrate disease, patient-centered symptom assessment, and quality of life impact of UI (including development of a condition-specific QoL measure older persons). Her current research focuses on trial design and placebo effect issues in the evaluation of drug treatment for UI. She also conducts an UI evaluation clinic for older persons, and participates in her section’s geriatric education project.

Dr. Stacie Levine teaches palliative care medicine and care of the older adults in the inpatient medical setting. More specifically she is dedicated to improving the recognition and treatment of pain as well as fostering conversations about prognosis to improve transitions of care in patients with limited life expectancy. She has developed a bedside index used to prognosticate 1-year mortality in older adults after hospital discharge and hopes to use it in future work to aid clinicians in discussions of goals of care with their patients.

Dr. Paula Podrazik is focused on the inpatient setting. She is currently co-investigator on a 4 year educational grant from the Donald W. Reynold’s Foundation entitled” Curriculum for the Aging Hospitalized Medical Patient (CHAMP) which focuses on improving care in the aging hospitalized patient through faculty development and education.

Dr. Carol Stocking has worked with researchers in the Section of Geriatrics for more than a decade. Currently she is working with Dr. Sachs and Gavin Hougham on a structured review of the literature reporting research with subjects with dementia, and on a survey of experienced researchers about changes in the IRB process in recent years. Her expertise is in survey (and similar) research methodology and she has published widely in ethics, medicine, and the social sciences. Dr. Stocking works with several other members of the Section as a core member of the professional staff.