Inaugural lecture continues Dyer’s quest to improve geriatric care


By Kristin Hoffmeister

Inaugural Aging to Perfection Lecture Series

UTHealth Houston Development Board Member Nancy Guinee, center, meets with Jason Burnett, PhD, co-director of the Texas Elder Abuse and Mistreatment Institute, left, and Aanand Naik, MD, executive director of the UTHealth Houston Consortium on Aging and the Nancy P. and Vincent F. Guinee, MD, Distinguished Chair, at the Dyer lecture. (Photo by Jacob Power Photography)

Family, friends, and a community of supporters gathered to continue the lifelong mission of a visionary in geriatrics at the inaugural Aging to Perfection Lecture Series in Memory of Carmel Bitondo Dyer, MD, on September 15, 2022, at the Briar Club.

Kicking off the event, Holly Holmes, MD, director of the Joan and Stanford Alexander Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine, reflected on the impact of Dyer’s pioneering work to advance care for older adults throughout Houston.

“We honor Carmel’s legacy every day in the ways that we care for older adults across the full continuum of care,” Holmes said. “We discover how to provide higher quality, more age-friendly care, and we apply that learning and transmit that knowledge to others, all with the patient family and caregiver at the heart of everything we do.”

Made possible thanks to a generous commitment from UTHealth Houston Development Board Member Nancy Guinee, the annual lecture series included a keynote address as well as a panel featuring some of Dyer’s colleagues across UTHealth Houston.

“I would like to thank Nancy Guinee for making this lecture series possible and for being a tireless champion of our efforts in geriatrics,” Holmes said.

Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, president of the John A. Hartford Foundation, built on the theme of inclusive care in the keynote address, describing the age-friendly health systems movement that is revolutionizing care for older people.

As part of building a more equitable health system, Fulmer emphasized the importance of the four Ms in geriatric medicine: what Matters, Mobility, Medication, and Mentation. Attending to these four areas can help make the care of older adults more manageable. They also apply regardless of an individual’s health status or their cultural, ethnic, or religious background.

“It doesn’t matter who is providing the care or where the care is being delivered,” Fulmer said. “If you are in an ICU or a homeless shelter or a nursing home, we need to improve the care of older adults.”

Dyer’s memory also permeated throughout the panel discussion, featuring faculty who described the UTHealth Houston Consortium on Aging’s interdisciplinary efforts to enhance geriatric education, research, and clinical care.

“When I think about the vision and future for the Consortium on Aging, we really are standing on the shoulders of a giant. My hope is that we continue Carmel’s work to bring experts from all health disciplines to focus on aging as a central theme,” said Aanand Naik, MD, executive director of the UTHealth Houston Consortium on Aging and the Nancy P. and Vincent F. Guinee, MD, Distinguished Chair.

Amy Franklin, PhD, associate professor at UTHealth Houston School of Biomedical Informatics, shared the consortium’s rich history.

“Through the Consortium on Aging, Carmel brought us together to dream about what an age-friendly health system would look like,” Franklin said. “Over the last decade, this vision has really started coming to fruition across our schools and our community.”

Expanding on this legacy, Jason Burnett, PhD, co-director of the Texas Elder Abuse and Mistreatment Institute, and Min Ji Kwak, MD, DrPH, assistant professor in the Joan and Stanford Alexander Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine, further shared their work to improve geriatric care while remembering Dyer’s support of their efforts.

“I came into this field because of Carmel,” Burnett said. “Her passion and her spirit are what brought me into geriatrics and are what have kept me going.”

“Fun, smart, engaging: All the words that I’ve reflected on all day thinking about Carmel and our long and wonderful friendship, which is continuing today in this lecture,” Fulmer said. “She had a great laugh that made all of our hearts sing. I continue to hear it in my heart and my mind when I think about the work that she inspired.”