June 27, 2024
Elizabeth Galik, PhD, CRNP, the new House of Delegates (HOD) representative on the AMDA Board of Directors, brings a unique perspective to her role. Not only is she a clinician and researcher, but she also is a journalist. As Caring for the Ages editor-in-chief and frequent contributor to this publication and others, she sees dozens of articles every month on a wide array of topics from an interdisciplinary team of authors. She also works hard, talking to people and reading voraciously, to keep her finger on the pulse of the cutting-edge, practical information AMDA members need. She is now pleased to bring her knowledge and skills to the Board of an organization she has a rewarding history with.
“Several years ago, I was fortunate enough to receive one of the AMDA Foundation’s Quality Improvement awards, and I’ve been involved with the organization ever since,” Dr. Galik says. “It’s always been a special place for me to have as my professional home.” She’s been active in the organization, having served as a member of the Annual Conference Planning Subcommittee, as well as on the Education and Membership committees. She also was a founding member of the NP/PA Advisory Council. And as a member of the HOD for four years, she is well equipped for her new position as HOD representative.
Dr. Galik is a professor and chair of the Department of Organizational Systems and Adult Health at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. She is also a nurse practitioner specializing in the medical and neuropsychiatric care of older adults with dementia. She currently works with the Sheppard Pratt Health System, where she maintains a clinical practice focused on dementia symptom management in assisted living and home care.
She is pleased to bring her insights as a nurse practitioner to the Board. She says, “Having the opportunity to bring a slightly different perspective is important because we see the number of advanced practice nurses really growing in gerontological care in long-term care and other settings.” She adds that the clinical expertise of the interdisciplinary team is really valued in AMDA, and she is pleased to feature this perspective to Caring and excited to bring it to her work on the Board.
Undeniably, there are challenges ahead for PALTC, and Dr. Galik looks forward to working with her colleagues to tackle them. She says, “I'm hopeful about the future, but I think we are at a bit of a crossroads. Post-acute and long-term care medicine is not going to look like it did before the pandemic. We're seeing changes in things like facility ownership and how and where people want to receive care.” She suggests, “I think all this presents opportunities for us to be part of the change process and take a broader view of the continuum of post-acute and long-term care.” She notes that there is a special issue of Caring coming out this summer that will explore this in-depth.
Though she is passionate about her work in PALTC, it wasn’t her career goal early on. Instead, she came into the field serendipitously. She was working as an inpatient psychiatry nurse, and there was a need for someone to work with geriatric patients. As a new team member, the job fell to Dr. Galik, but she soon came to love the field. “What better place to do important work, have longstanding relationships with patients, and be part of a team than in long-term care?” she muses. She also gets tremendous satisfaction from working with those people who are new to the medical field. “I enjoy nurturing their interest in the field of geriatrics. It’s so worthwhile and rewarding.”