Hebrew SeniorLife’s Dae Hyun Kim, MD, MPH, ScD, Elected to American Society for Clinical Investigation

Dae Hyun Kim, MD, MPH, ScD, founder of the Frailty Research Program at Hebrew SeniorLife's Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research, has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, a medical honorary society for physician-scientists.  

According to ASCI, Kim is one of 100 new members who come from 50 different institutions and represent excellence across the breadth of academic medicine. They will be officially inducted into the society at the ASCI Dinner and New Member Induction Ceremony on April 5, 2024, as part of the AAP/ASCI/APSA Joint Meeting in Chicago.

Each year, the ASCI Council considers membership nominations of several hundred physician-scientists — aged 50 years or younger — and recommends up to 100 candidates for election based on outstanding scholarly achievement.

Election is a milestone in the physician-scientist career path, and the ASCI holds its members to the highest standards of integrity, professionalism, mutual respect, and collegiality. Along with the Association of American Physicians and American Physician Scientists Association, the ASCI convenes an annual scientific meeting in Chicago. With the guidance of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, the society has established programs and processes to achieve equity and meaningful inclusion for people of all identities, with a focus on physician-scientists who are underrepresented in medicine and science (UiMS).

About Dr. Kim

Dr. Kim is a geriatrician, researcher, and mentor. He believes we can provide better health care to older people by incorporating frailty into clinical care, research, and population health.

Toward this mission, Dr. Kim founded the Frailty Research Program at the Marcus Institute. Funded by grants from the National Institute on Aging, Harvard Catalyst, Health Resources in Action, and John A. Hartford Foundation, his research aims to enable clinicians and health care systems to deliver clinical care and population health management tailored to a person’s frailty level.

As a Beeson scholar, Dr. Kim developed a claims-based frailty index algorithm, which allows estimation of the frailty level from administrative claims data such as Medicare data. This algorithm is widely used by epidemiologists and health services researchers who want to measure frailty on a population scale. He is a member of the Project Advisory Task Force for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation of the Department of Health and Human Services for “Validating and Expanding Claims-Based Algorithms of Frailty and Functional Disability for Value-Based Care and Payment.” Dr. Kim’s current research uses this algorithm to evaluate the benefits and harms of drug therapies, surgical procedures, and care models by different levels of frailty.

To translate frailty into clinical practice, Dr. Kim has developed the Senior Health Calculator, an online frailty index calculator, which has been incorporated into the electronic medical records at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. As a result, frailty assessment is increasingly used for clinical decision-making and conversations about prognosis with patients and their families.  

As a geriatrician, Dr. Kim provides a preoperative comprehensive geriatric assessment in medically complex patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement in the Senior Health Practice at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Dr. Kim has mentored over 40 people in their early career, including recipients of the National Institutes of Health career development awards. He teaches students and trainees at Harvard Medical School, Harvard Geriatrics Medicine Fellowship, and Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. He lectures on preoperative frailty assessment in the Harvard Annual Review of Geriatric Medicine course.
Dr. Kim is an associate editor of the Journals of Gerontology Medical Sciences and serves on the American Geriatrics Society Research Methods subcommittee and the editorial board of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

About ASCI

The American Society for Clinical Investigation seeks to support the scientific efforts, educational needs, and clinical aspirations of physician-scientists to improve the health of all people.

The ASCI is a nonprofit medical honor society composed of more than 3,000 physician-scientists representing all medical specialties. The society is dedicated to the advancement of research that extends understanding of diseases and improves treatment, and members are committed to mentoring future generations of physician-scientists.

Founded in 1908, the ASCI is one of the nation’s oldest medical honor societies and is among the few organizations focused on the special role of physician-scientists in research, clinical care, and medical education, as well as leadership positions in academic medicine and the life sciences industry.

About Hebrew SeniorLife

Hebrew SeniorLife, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, is a national senior services leader uniquely dedicated to rethinking, researching, and redefining the possibilities of aging. Hebrew SeniorLife cares for more than 4,500 seniors a day across six campuses throughout Greater Boston. Locations include: Hebrew Rehabilitation Center-Boston and Hebrew Rehabilitation Center-NewBridge in Dedham; NewBridge on the Charles, Dedham; Orchard Cove, Canton; Simon C. Fireman Community, Randolph; Center Communities of Brookline, Brookline; and Jack Satter House, Revere. Founded in 1903, Hebrew SeniorLife also conducts influential research into aging at the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research, which has a portfolio of more than $98 million, making it one of the largest gerontological research facilities in the U.S. in a clinical setting. It also trains more than 1,000 geriatric care providers each year. For more information about Hebrew SeniorLife, visit our website or follow us on our blog, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn.