Rachel M. Skains, MD, MSPH

Dr. Skains is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine (EM) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) with a joint faculty position at the Birmingham VA Medical Center (BVAMC). After graduating from Wake Forest School of Medicine (2016), she completed her EM residency at UAB (2019) followed by a Clinical Research Fellowship focused on Geriatric EM while pursuing a Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH) in Clinical and Translational Science from the UAB School of Public Health (2021). Dr. Skains was awarded the AHRQ NRSA T32 Postdoctoral Scholar Fellowship in the UAB Health Services Research Training Program (2020-2022), in addition to funding through the UAB Integrative Center for Aging Research (ICAR), Geriatric Emergency care Applied Research (GEAR) 1.0, NIA Grants for Early Medical/Surgical Specialists' Transition to Aging Research (GEMSSTAR) R03 (2023-2025), Exploratory/ Developmental Grant R21 (2023-2025), and GEMSSTAR for EM Supplemental Funding Program through SAEMF/EMF to examine the risk of adverse health outcomes, such as delirium, with potentially inappropriate medication use among older adults in the ED. In addition, Dr. Skains was an ED physician champion for the UAB – Highlands and BVAMC Geriatric ED Committees, which received Level 1 (2021) and Level 3 (2023) accreditations respectively, completed the UAB Geriatric Scholar Interprofessional Program (2019-2021), updated the Geriatric ED Guidelines 2.0 in Medication Safety, published the first expert consensus-based list of high-risk prescriptions for older ED patients (GEMS-Rx),  and serves as Member-at-Large for the SAEM Academy of Geriatric Emergency Medicine (AGEM) (2024-2026).