Clin-Star Corner: A New Series Featuring Practice Changing Articles in Medical, Surgical and Related Specialties

Sparked by increased longevity, reduced early mortality of many medical conditions, and surgical advances, more older persons are living with multiple chronic conditions and are more vulnerable to acute events and illnesses.¹ As a result, older adults are often cared for by a myriad of medical and surgical specialists, in addition to their geriatrician and/or primary care provider. Whether these specialist encounters occur as a single hospital or outpatient consultation or procedure, or over time for chronic management of a specific condition, there has been a rapidly growing need for specialists to embrace specific tenets of geriatric care, including efforts toward seamless transdisciplinary care and communication.

In 2009, the Institute of Medicine emphasized the emergent need to equip additional healthcare personnel, specifically those in and affiliated with medical and surgical specialties, with knowledge and skills to provide optimal care to meet the complex needs of the increasing population of older Americans.² In response, the National Institute on Aging (NIA) launched the Grants for Early Medical and Surgical Specialists (GEMSSTAR) initiative to build a cadre of future leaders in medical and surgical specialties to champion research that would lead to improvements in care and more effective treatment options for older patients with complex health conditions.^3,4 This initiative leveraged earlier efforts supported through the Dennis W. Jahnigen and T. Franklin Williams Scholars Programs.^5,6,7,8 The physicians trained through these programs have created geriatric/aging interest groups within their professional societies that have engaged additional specialists committed to improving the care of older persons.⁹ Many of these specialists have made great strides in providing evidence-based guidance on specific issues pertaining to the approach, diagnosis, and management of older patients for whom they care.^10,11

To enhance efforts to connect geriatric specialists across disciplines with each other, the NIA recently funded a national platform, Clinician-Scientists Transdisciplinary Aging Research (Clin-STAR) Coordinating Center (https://clin-star.org), which is overseen by the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR). Clin-STAR provides a multitude of opportunities to expand, educate, fund, and stimulate aging-focused clinician investigators in medical, surgical and other disciplines at all career levels. Training and supporting clinician investigators in aging research within and across disciplines creates an opportunity to advance science within each specialty, highlights recent advances in practice changing care within their specialty, and ultimately improves short- and long-term outcomes among older persons. Additional information about Clin-STAR is provided in the Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Answers to Commonly Asked Questions about Clin-STAR. The Clin-STAR Coordinating Center is managed by the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR). Odette van der Willik is a Multiple Principal Investigator at the National Program Office at AFAR, and Andrea Sherman is the Clin-STAR Program Manager. AGS, American Geriatrics Society.

The Clin-STAR Program and Editors of JAGS are pleased to announce the launch of a new, recurrent series, ‘Clin-STAR Corner’. This series capitalizes on the expertise and passion of the medical and surgical specialty community of aging-focused clinician investigators and leaders who will summarize the most impactful studies within their specialty over the past two years pertinent to the care of older persons. The goals of this series are two-fold: first, to highlight current practice-changing research within medical, surgical and related specialties; and second, to enhance transdisciplinary communication, research and care strategies.

These literature updates will include up to 1100 words with an optional table or figure. They will follow a general format of an introduction that describes the state of aging research within the specialty, a brief overview of the search strategy used to identify these key practice-changing original reports, and summaries of each report. A team of two to four authors will identify high-quality articles within their specialty, prioritizing well-executed randomized-controlled studies or large cohort studies involving diverse aging populations. These reports should generally be published in high-impact general medical or specialty journals besides aging. Drs. Lona Mody and Thomas Gill will serve as section editors.

The authors will discuss important caveats, including each report’s strengths, limitations and clinical implications, concluding with a passage addressing unanswered questions and/or the need for further research. For the medical and surgical specialties, recipients of a GEMSSTAR award (and/or early career leaders in the field) along with their senior mentors within aging and clinical specialty would be best positioned to write the literature updates. We anticipate that these updates may later include other health professionals in disciplines such as nursing, pharmacy, psychology, and rehabilitation. Although nominations are welcome, these updates will generally be solicited by the section editors. All submissions will undergo a thorough external peer-review process. We acknowledge the rapid nature of scientific advances and expect that key reports within each specialty will be highlighted at regular intervals.

With this vision, a different medical or surgical discipline will be highlighted, starting with Infectious Diseases¹² and Nephrology¹³ in the current issue. Upcoming contributions will showcase well-designed studies and updates within the fields of Rheumatology, Emergency Medicine, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and Cardiology. We will solicit contributions from other clinical disciplines, including Surgery and Psychiatry (among others), with the expectation that this series will evolve over time.