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Lisa Walke has served as the Chief of the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine since 2018. (Photo by David DeBalko)

Penn geriatrician Lisa Walke has been named one of 21 fellows in the Carol Emmott Fellowship Class of 2021.

The fellowship is a 14-month program run by the Carol Emmott Foundation, a national organization that promotes gender inclusivity and equity in leadership positions in the medical field. Over the course of the fellowship, women leaders in medicine are provided with support and resources to help them create a project for their health communities.

Walke has served as the Chief of the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine since 2018. Previously, she served on the faculty of Yale University for fifteen years.

Walke is now working on a project to expand the reach of geriatric medicine by initiating virtual consultations for patients undergoing surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Medicine News reported. Walke’s overall goal is to confront the disparity between the number of geriatric-trained healthcare professionals and the number of older adults living in the U.S.

In her Carol Emmott Foundation Impact Project, Walke aims to establish a collaborative care model connecting geriatrics and surgery at Penn Medicine, to help incorporate geriatric practices into standard pre- and post-operation practices, helping increase the number of physicians with geriatric training.

“Despite an aging population, the number of geriatricians in the United States has not grown substantially,” Walke told Penn Medicine News.

In the U.S. today, there are only around 3,500 practicing geriatric physicians despite the fact that there are more than 52 million adults aged 65 or older, a number that is expected to be 77 million by 2034, Penn Medicine News reported.

Walke was named one of the top doctors in Philadelphia by Philadelphia Magazine in May.