The Geriatric Emergency Department Collaborative (GEDC) proudly congratulates Lauren T. Southerland, MD, MPH, on her promotion to Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. She is the first woman to hold a tenured full professorship in the department’s history.
Dr. Southerland has spent more than a decade on the faculty at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center, where she serves as Director of Clinical and Implementation Research for the Department of Emergency Medicine. Her promotion reflects a career built on translating research into tangible and sustained changes in how emergency departments care for older adults.
Dr. Southerland is a nationally recognized leader in geriatric emergency medicine and implementation science, work centered on facilitating evidence-based care models being adopted at the bedside. She was named a 2025 Fulbright U.S. Scholar and traveled to hospitals in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia to study their geriatric care integration models. She has served as principal investigator on NIH-funded research into multidisciplinary geriatric assessment in the emergency department, and her prior honors include the American Geriatrics Society’s Jeffrey H. Silverstein Memorial Award for Emerging Investigators and an NIA K23 career development award. As GEDC faculty, she has been instrumental in developing the collaborative’s resources supporting hospitals in meeting the CMS Age-Friendly Hospital Measure among many other contributions.
“Geriatric Emergency Medicine is an amazing group of researchers who have supported me through my career, and I look forward to passing that support along to young investigators a full Professor,” Dr. Southerland said.
GEDC is grateful for Dr. Southerland’s continued leadership and her sustained commitment to advancing high-quality, age-friendly emergency care for older adults everywhere.
Congratulations, Dr. Southerland, on this well-deserved and historic achievement!