Sarah McGee: Dedicated advocate for older adults in clinical practice and community
In this month’s Chair’s Spotlight, we highlight the work of Sarah McGee, MD, MPH, a clinician-educator whose career in Geriatric Medicine has spanned more than 30 years. We recently spoke with Dr. McGee about her work and what makes her chosen field of practice unique. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Why did you choose the field of Geriatric Medicine?
I can't say that I had a light bulb or aha moment when I was drawn to Geriatric Medicine. Growing up I didn't live with my grandparents. I didn't have a lot of contact with older adults, but I had good relationships with them—they were important people in my life (I was named after one of my grandmothers), so there were certainly positive experiences. But, what brought me to this work was when I was in residency training, I felt like there was probably a better way to do things for older adults. At that time, there were no didactics or experiences in geriatric medicine. When I was a third-year resident, I made my first home visit, by myself, for an older patient and that was a real eye-opener. After that and subsequent experiences, I decided that I enjoyed that population. I liked hearing their stories. I liked talking to them. I liked trying to help them and I thought it would be an interesting population to work with.
What brought you to Worcester?
After completing my fellowship, my husband, who is also a physician, and I moved from the Midwest back to Massachusetts, to be closer to our family. UMass seemed to be a good fit for my career goals and I have now been here for over 30 years!
Can you describe your clinical and other efforts?
Throughout my career, my clinical efforts have spanned the continuum of care from the outpatient setting, long-term care, skilled nursing care, home visits, and inpatient care. Recently my clinical efforts have focused on older adults in the Geriatric Medicine Outpatient Clinic, and I serve as a medical director for one of the hospices in the Worcester community. I also maintain a small home visit practice. I have also been involved with and led several educational initiatives and curricular innovations across undergraduate and graduate medical education, and inter-professionally within geriatric medicine.
Can you describe your work in the community?
Over the years, I have served on various boards. Some of them no longer exist as they have been subsumed by other agencies, but I currently serve with agencies that are connected with the Aging Network. While I don't have an official role at the Worcester Senior Center, I'm very familiar with the staff and leadership there. The Division of Geriatric Medicine has been involved in initiatives at the Senior Center through [UMass Chan] with some of our medical students for many years. We also frequently interact with home health agencies, clinically, and work with many of the community hospices. The Worcester aging community is a relatively small community so you get to know people that are outside our own organizations that are working in the field. I'm a representative in some of these situations—not an official representative, but because I work for UMass Memorial I try to make people aware of what is happening at UMass Memorial that could potentially benefit older adults, so I think I've been seen as an advocate for older adults in this respect.
What are the unique qualities of the Geriatrics team at UMass?
Globally, if you look at physician satisfaction surveys there are two groups that are at the top of the list—pediatrics and geriatrics, so it's not necessarily unique to us, but I think our providers are generally happy. It might have to do with the type of person that wants to go into geriatrics. It’s certainly not based on clinical revenue because we're not at the top by any means—there are no procedures that we do that bring us to the top. However, through [Dr. Gurwitz’s] leadership, we have been able to expand our fellowship from one slot to two. From there, we’ve also been able to grow the division by hiring people from within our fellowship, so we know them, we’ve built a rapport with them, and we know that we like their work. We've tried to encourage our faculty and staff to explore opportunities within our academic medical center in terms of what they want to do clinically or educationally. We also try to be flexible with our faculty and staff and recognize that there is life outside of work. Finally, [Dr. Gurwitz’s] leadership has been key to our team. He's very easy to work with, he is strategic, he's smart, and he gets a lot of things done. He's a great advocator and I've learned a lot from him over the years, but I think all our faculty has as well.
Final thoughts?
In terms of my work in geriatrics, it's personally and professionally very rewarding. We all want to try to offer our best care whether it is for simple or medically and/or psychosocially complex older adult patients. Every day is different and I get a sense of satisfaction knowing that we're helping people with their day-to-day lives and some of their struggles and that even if it is a small change, whether it's a medication or whatever it is that we’re intervening on, it could make a huge difference in someone's life.
Dr. McGee is the clinical chief and a professor of medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine. She earned her medical degree from New York Medical College and completed her residency at Baystate Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine. She completed fellowships in Geriatric Medicine at St. Louis University School of Medicine and Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. McGee also holds a master’s in public health from St. Louis University.