Welcome Incoming UCSF Division of Geriatrics Fellows!

UCSF Division of Geriatrics is very excited to announce our incoming 2022-2023 class of geriatric medicine, GeriPal, and VAQS fellows!

The GeriPal fellow is:  

  • Olivia Bernal: Olivia completed medical school at UPenn Perelman School of Medicine and is now finishing IM residency at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, where our very own 2nd year geripal fellow, Dr. Lingsheng Li, trained. Olivia has a long-standing commitment to both geriatrics and palliative care dating back to medical school. She’s done research work 1) examining interprofessional education on goals of care in the ICU, 2) identifying unmet needs in those living with COPD, and 3) looking at the association between disability severity, patient satisfaction, and perceived quality of care in Medicare beneficiaries. She has also volunteered her time on committees focused on wellness, diversity, and women in medicine. Olivia is planning a career as a clinician-investigator. We are thrilled to welcome her as our next geripal fellow!

The geriatrics fellows are:

  • Tamika Bailey: Tamika completed medical school at Northwestern and UCSF Primary Care IM residency. She has been working at Sutter East Bay as a hospitalist and volunteering in many community based organizations, including Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly, and Kindred Hospice, to name a few. Furthermore, she is a physician champion on wellness, anti-racist initiatives, and delirium prevention in her hospital system. We are all impressed by her service to her communities! She is interested in pursuing clinical geriatrics and returning to serve in the community. 
     
  • Monica Cheng: Monica completed medical school and is finishing IM residency at McGovern Medical School at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She did research on self-neglect and medication adherence, telehealth interventions for older adults living with heart failure during MSTAR, and impact of delirium on cost of hospitalization. She is interested in quality improvement and wants to become a better teacher in geriatric medicine.  
     
  • Eddie Lam: Eddie completed medical school at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and is completing IM residency at Kaiser- Santa Clara. He’s done many quality improvement projects, including examining insulin initiation and readmission to the hospital among older adults, utilizing medical-legal partnership to address unmet socioeconomic needs to improve care of those living with asthma, and assessing fall risks among those in the PACE program. He is interested in geriatric primary care and post-acute care. 
     
  • Robert Zimbroff: Robbie just brings rays of sunshine to everyone around him! He completed medical school at Mount Sinai, NY, with an extra year as a Healthcare Transformation Research Fellow during which he got to look at home-based healthcare delivery in vulnerable populations and met some of the best geriatricians and researchers in our field (including our very own Natalie Young). He is now finishing IM residency at Cleveland Clinic, and Ken Koncilja has been singing his praises, which we wholeheartedly agree. Robbie is super scholarly and productive, and he is interested in home-based program, health policy and research. 

The new VAQS fellows are:

  • Karen de Sola Smith: Karen completed nursing school at UCSF School of Nursing and a master's in Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nursing Practitioner with Concentrations in Palliative Care and Geriatrics. She is interested in age-friendly innovation in primary and emergency care, particularly in including family caregivers in health care interventions and plans, supporting health with upstream social medicine policies, and broadly in equitable access to health care across abilities, ages and demographic distinctions. She is also interested in effective palliative care interventions for older adults and family caregivers in the settings of dementia, heart failure, and cancer, palliative care communication tools for Geriatric Emergency Departments, and issues, tools, and metrics in Geriatric Emergency Departments and home-based care models
     
  • Christina Keny: Christina Keny has been a Registered Nurse for almost 20 years. She holds an undergraduate degree in Nursing and a Master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from the University of California, San Francisco(UCSF). Christina is currently a doctoral student at UCSF. She is also a predoctoral NIH T32 Fellow in the UCSF Symptom Science program.