Rachel Skains, MD, MSPH is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine (EM) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) with a joint faculty position at the Birmingham VA Medical Center (BVAMC). Dr. Skains is an early-stage investigator focused on improving medication safety and cognitive impairment management in the acute care of older adults through patient-centered outcomes research. Dr. Skains’ interest in cognition and aging stems from her undergraduate training in Neuroscience, working as a clinical research coordinator at Carolinas Neuromuscular/MDA-ALS Center and serving as a NC Albert Schweitzer Fellow. After graduating from Wake Forest School of Medicine (2016), she completed her EM residency at UAB (2019) followed by a Clinical Research Fellowship focused on Geriatric EM (GEM) while pursuing a Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH) in Clinical and Translational Science from the UAB School of Public Health (2021). Dr. Skains was awarded the AHRQ NRSA T32 Postdoctoral Scholar Fellowship in the UAB Health Services Research Training Program (2020-2022), in addition to funding through the UAB Integrative Center for Aging Research (ICAR) and Geriatric Emergency care Applied Research (GEAR) 1.0 pilot grant programs. Furthermore, Dr. Skains is a ED physician champion for the UAB – Highlands and BVAMC Geriatric ED Committees, which received Level 1 (2021) and Level 3 (2023) accreditations respectively, completed the UAB Geriatric Scholar Interprofessional Program (2019-2021), and serves as Fellow board member for the GEM Section of American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) (2021-2023). Dr. Skains is also leader of the Medication Safety Committee to update the national Geriatric ED Guidelines, leader of the ACEP quality measure group to develop a geriatric high-risk ED prescription list, Level 3 Geriatric ED accreditation reviewer, and committee member for UAB’s Department of Inter-professional practice and training (DIPT), what matters advisory group, and AGEM grant & awards subcommittee. Finally, she was recently the recipient of the 2023 Academy of Geriatric Emergency Medicine Early Career Achievement Award and a GEMSSTAR R03 (2023-2025) to evaluate the risk factors and time course of incident delirium in the ED.