The 2010 meeting of the American Geriatrics Society (where I spent my weekend and much of last week) celebrated a number of transitions in the field of elder care. First and foremost, we are very pleased to join the aging and health community in welcoming Jennie Chin Hansen, RN, MSN, FAAN, to the new role of Chief Executive Officer of the AGS and to thank outgoing AGS Chief Executive Officer Linda Hiddemen Barondess for her years of service. I was fortunate to work with Jennie when she was at On Lok, both on the Geriatric Interdisciplinary Team Training grant and on On Lok’s effort to develop a custom electronic health record for PACE sites in the 1990s. She is pragmatic, visionary, and talented. I know that she will bring to AGS hope for what might be, realism about what is, and the intellectual and emotional skills needed to shift the field from the one to the other.

I think it is a particularly positive marker of the society’s maturation that they chose a nurse not only for CEO, but also as volunteer president-elect. Long-time AGS board member Barbara Resnick, PhD, CRNP, FAAN, was selected to succeed Sharon Brangman as president when Dr. Brangman’s term is completed next May. These choices make it clear that people should think of AGS as an organization committed to improving the health of older people, not just as a guild for physicians. The organization’s mission statement sums it up: “To improve the health, independence, and quality of life of all older people.”

In addition to celebrating these transitions at the meeting, we also got many opportunities to bask in reflected glory. Long-time grantees Mathy Mezey, EdD, RN, FAAN, of NYU’s Hartford Geriatric Nursing Institute won the Nascher/Manning Award, and Paul Eleazer, MD, of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, won the Dennis W. Jahnigen Memorial Award. Dr. Eleazer directs the Foundation’s leadership training grant for directors of divisions of geriatric medicine. It is a real perk of my job to be able to work with such outstanding people.

This only scratches the surface of the interesting and important events that took place at the meeting. Look for more meeting-inspired posts over the next week or two—after we catch up on our sleep!