Prominent geriatrician Dr. Cheryl Phillips, immediate past president of the American Geriatrics Society, past president of the American Medical Directors Association, and now senior vice president for advocacy at LeadingAge (previously known as the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging), will be gracing CALTCM annual meeting attendees with a keynote address on Saturday morning, May 12, 2012, on the notion of engaged leadership in long-term care. The whole Saturday program will focus in on risk management, to include discussion of the top ten deficiencies cited by the Department of Public Health and review of common themes in elder abuse lawsuits in the long-term care setting. Communication techniques will be reviewed, and assessment of decisional capacity using the U-CARE algorithm will be demonstrated by Drs. Rebecca Ferrini and Robert Gibson Ph.D., JD.

At the recent CALTCM Board of Directors meeting, our 2012-2014 slate of officers and committee chairs was approved. The term will run from our annual meeting in May 2012 until the annual meeting in 2014. The annual membership meeting at lunch on May 12, 2012 at the Omni in Los Angeles will make these positions official.

Our congratulations and thanks to these leaders who have graciously agreed to serve our organization:

Although treating depression in nursing homes is important, we must always keep in mind that the treatments themselves involve risk. Here is a link reporting on a new article on antidepressants and fall risk in nursing homes.

Please provide a brief background of your training and practice setting and years in practice.

I received my medical degree at University of Missouri-Kansas City and trained in internal medicine at Washington University-Barnes Jewish Hospital. I completed my clinical geriatric fellowship at Stanford-VA Palo Alto and then a geriatric clinical-educator fellowship at University of California-San Francisco. I previously worked as a geriatrician and palliative care physician at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center for 6 years and served as Chief of Geriatrics. I care for frail, older adults in a variety of settings including skilled nursing facility, hospital, and clinic. I recently joined the Palo Alto Division of Palo Alto Medical Foundation this year and will be lead physician in developing a community palliative care program.