Following a national search, Elizabeth M. Galik, PhD '07, CRNP, FAAN, FAANP, has been selected as the next chair of the Department of Organizational Systems and Adult Health (OSAH). Please join us in congratulating her on her new role, which she assumed on Wednesday, March 17, 2021.
Dr. Galik joined the faculty of the School of Nursing in 2006 as a clinical instructor. She was promoted to assistant professor in 2007 and to associate professor (tenured) in 2013, and she attained the rank of professor (tenured) in 2018. Dr. Galik is also a full member of the Graduate Faculty, University of Maryland, Baltimore, and a faculty affiliate, Doctoral Program in Gerontology, University of Maryland, Baltimore and University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Dr. Galik is certified as an adult nurse practitioner and maintains an active clinical practice with a focus on improving the medical and neuropsychiatric care of older adults with dementia across multiple care settings. She provides direct patient care to older adults with cognitive impairment and their caregivers in an outpatient clinic, assisted living facilities, and nursing homes; she has also developed a house call practice across central Maryland to address the management of dementia symptoms.
Dr. Galik has taught undergraduate, master's, and doctoral students. Her current primary teaching assignment is in the Doctor of Nursing Practice Adult-Gerontological Primary Care Nurse Practitioner specialty; she also serves as an advisor and dissertation chair for PhD students. She is deeply involved in the clinical education of nurse practitioner students and other health care students and health professionals (including medicine, social work, pharmacy, dental hygiene, rehabilitation). Her clinical work has been widely recognized. In 2019, she was named the Clinician of the Year in Post-Acute and Long Term Care Medicine by the Mid-Atlantic Medical Directors Association. And she was recently named the 2021 recipient of the Maryland Nurse Practitioner State Award of Excellence from the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
Dr. Galik’s externally funded research tests the impact of non-pharmacological interventions on optimizing function, physical activity, mood, and behavior in individuals with dementia. She has served as the principal investigator on funded research grants that seek to teach caregivers in long-term care facilities strategies to optimize function and physical activity in older adults with dementia and effectively manage behavioral symptoms. She has disseminated her research findings through more than 100 manuscripts and 30 book chapters, as well as over 175 presentations (refereed and invited) at national and regional meetings for nursing and interdisciplinary audiences.
Dr. Galik has served as a peer reviewer for a number of journals. She currently serves as an editorial board member for the International Journal of Older People Nursing, and as editor-in-chief of Caring for the Ages, the official publication of the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.
Dr. Galik has served as a scientific review member for the National Institute on Aging and the International Psychogeriatric Association, and she been an expert advisor for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on issues related to improving behavioral health and reducing the inappropriate use of antipsychotic medications in long-term care and acute care settings. Locally, she has served as an advisor to the Maryland Office of Health Care Quality and the Alzheimer’s Association of Maryland and Delaware Valley. Among her many organizational affiliations, she is a past president of the Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Association, and past vice president and president of its Maryland Chapter.
Dr. Galik has been recognized with numerous awards and honors. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP), of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), and of the Gerontological Society of America. She was the recipient of the Southern Nursing Research Society/John A. Hartford Foundation Geriatric Nursing Research Award (2016), the Research Podium Presentation Award from the Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Association (2014), and the Springer Award in Geriatric-Gerontological Nursing for Applied Research (2013).
Dr. Galik earned her PhD from the University of Maryland School of Nursing in 2007, where she was the recipient of the Pi Chapter, Sigma Theta Tau International Dissertation Award. She received a post-master's certificate from the Adult Nurse Practitioner Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing; a Master of Science in Nursing Education from Villanova University; and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing, summa cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania. From 2003 - 05, she was a John A. Hartford Foundation Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity Pre-Doctoral Scholar and from 2009 - 12, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Post-Doctoral Nurse Faculty Scholar.
In her role as chair, Department of Organizational Systems and Adult Health (OSAH), Dr. Galik succeeds Dr. Kathleen Michael, who retired on March 1, 2021, after five years as chair and having served the School of Nursing and the University of Maryland, Baltimore for close to 20years. Dr. Galik brings to her new role not only her longstanding knowledge of the School of Nursing, but more importantly, her exceptional talents as a nurse researcher, scholar, teacher, and mentor of students and colleagues.
Please extend your warm welcome and your support to Dr. Galik as she assumes her new responsibilities.