Geriatric Emergency Medicine
Dr. Don Melady, Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, continues to advance the field of Geriatric Emergency Medicine (GEM). His efforts remain focused on improving the quality of care for older adults in the ED at Mount Sinai Hospital and on promoting the concept of the “older person-friendly ED” across Canada and around the world. His work integrates clinical practice, education, and implementation science, with the goal of ensuring that older patients receive care that is timely, compassionate, and tailored to their unique needs.
Over the past year, Dr. Melady’s contributions have extended well beyond Canada’s borders. Internationally recognized as a leader in GEM, he played a key role in organizing the 2025 joint conference of the International Federation of Emergency Medicine (IFEM) and the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP), held in Montreal in June. As a member of the planning committee, he coordinated both the Geriatrics track and the Educational Marketplace, ensuring that geriatric topics were well represented in the scientific and educational program. In recognition of his expertise, the IFEM Board invited him to deliver the prestigious George Podgorny Plenary Lecture, titled “Emergency Departments on an Aging Planet: What Does EM Have to Offer?” This talk highlighted the global challenges and opportunities in caring for older adults in emergency settings and underscored emergency medicine’s unique role in adapting to aging populations worldwide.
In September, Dr. Melady was invited by the European Society of Emergency Medicine (EUSEM) to deliver two days of pre-conference workshops and to speak in the Geriatrics track of their annual congress in Vienna. These sessions drew participants from across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, emphasizing the growing global interest in geriatric emergency care and the recognition of Canada’s leadership in this area.
In the United States, Dr. Melady continues his long-standing involvement with The Geriatric Emergency Department Collaborative (GEDC), a national, grant-funded organization dedicated to improving ED care for older adults. Over the past seven years, he has coordinated a highly successful webinar series, producing 45 sessions on key topics in geriatric emergency medicine. Each webinar attracts roughly 200 participants from around the world, fostering a vibrant international learning community. He also contributes content and educational tools for the GEDC website (https://gedcollaborative.com) and collaborates with U.S. hospitals and health systems to disseminate and implement best practices in geriatric ED care.
In the past year, he has published several articles related to geriatrics and frailty in top-tier journals, including Academic Emergency Medicine, Age and Ageing, BMC Geriatrics, and the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine (CJEM).
Within Canada, Dr. Melady remains a driving force in CAEP’s Geriatric Emergency Medicine Committee, where he leads the Education subgroup. Under his guidance, the team has developed and delivered the Clinical Geriatric Emergency Medicine Course nine times across the country, with three additional sessions, both in-person and virtual, planned for the coming year.
Beyond his academic and leadership roles, Dr. Melady also dedicates time to global health. He recently spent a week in rural Ghana delivering a skills development program for community ED workers. This initiative reflects his enduring commitment to building emergency care capacity worldwide and ensuring that older patients everywhere receive dignified, effective, and evidence-based emergency care.
In June 2024, Mount Sinai Hospital announced the Dr. Don Melady Chair in Geriatric Emergency Medicine, one of 18 fully endowed academic chairs. This chair will allow SREMI to support an academic to continue work – research, education, system change, advocacy -- in improving care of older ED patients.