Audrey Lam

I am a second-year medical student at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine and a graduate of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. During my four years as an EMT with USC Emergency Medical Services (EMSC), I served as the Associate Director, implemented a geriatric curriculum, and led EMTs in teaching first aid at a retirement community—a first in EMSC’s history. My passions in gerontology and EMS led me to join Cedars-Sinai’s Geriatric ED Quality Improvement Committee towards GED accreditation. Reflecting upon my ED volunteer experience, I identified ways to optimize our volunteer structure to better fulfill older patients’ needs. I collaborated with interdisciplinary healthcare leaders to innovate Cedars-Sinai’s first age-friendly volunteer program and presented at ACEP and to the Institute of Healthcare Improvement on how our 3,600 hours of supportive interventions decreased restraint usage and calmed agitated patients. I learned that collaborative committees, like these, are capable of shifting entire cultures and mobilizing resources to structurally improve care for marginalized communities. I have additionally presented at the National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation Conference for three years about age-friendly, culturally-sensitive EMS care. As the recipient of the NIA-funded Medical Student Training in Aging Research (MSTAR) grant at UCLA, I researched ethnogeriatrics with Dr. David Reuben and was selected to be their 2024 Murray H. Neidorf MSTAR Scholar. I am grateful and excited for the opportunity to collaborate and advance age-friendly care for underrepresented communities in emergency medicine across medical schools.