Geriatric Medicine Fellowship Program
Faculty

Eric Tien Yen Chyn, MD, CMD

Program Director

Dr. Chyn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine and Director of the Geriatric Medicine Fellowship Program at Rutgers Health New Jersey Medical School. He earned his Bachelor of Science in 2009 from University of British Columbia. He received his Doctor of Medicine in 2013 from St. George's University in Grenada, West Indies. He completed his Internal Medicine Residency in 2016 at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Queens Hospital Center Program and Geriatric Fellowship in 2017 at the Mount Sinai Hospital

Dr. Chyn has been a Faculty member at the New Jersey Medical School since 2020.  He initiated the first geriatric care and consultation clinic, housed within the Ambulatory Care Center. He collaborated with Trauma Surgery and started the first inpatient geriatrics consultation service within the University Hospital System.

Dr. Vineesh Bhatnagar

Associate Chief of Staff Extended Care VA NJ HCS
Core faculty
ABIM Board Certification: Geriatric Medicine

Dr. Bhatnagar has served as Associate Chief of Staff of Extended Care Service at VA New Jersey Health Care System (VANJHCS) for last ten years. Prior to this Dr. Bhatnagar worked as the Care Line Manager of Geriatrics at VA Hudson Valley Health Care System, NY where he started the geriatric program. In his current position, Dr. Bhatnagar provides clinical and administrative leadership to a 270 bed Community Living Center (CLC) which provides Long Term Care, inpatient hospice unit, sub-acute rehab unit, dementia unit and a geriatric-mental health unit. Dr. Bhatnagar also oversees several community programs in geriatrics- including Home Based Primary Care, Contract Nursing Home, Home Health Aide, Purchased Skilled Care and Adult Day Health Care, Medical Foster Home and the Rural Health program.

Prior to joining the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Bhatnagar was the Chief of Geriatrics at the Overlook Hospital, NJ. He also served as a teaching faculty for the Internal Medicine residency program at the Overlook Hospital.

Dr. Bhatnagar is board certified in geriatrics and hospice and palliative care. He did the geriatric fellowship at Gainesville VA Health Care System in Florida. With more than 20 years of clinical experience in medicine, geriatrics and palliative care, Dr. Bhatnagar continues to contribute through various national work group.

Dr. Loveleen Sidhu

Deputy Associate Chief of Staff Extended Care, Director CLC VA NJ HCS
Assistant Professor Co-Terminous
Core faculty
ABIM Board Certification: Geriatric Medicine and Internal Medicine

Dr. Loveleen Sidhu is Deputy ACOS Extended Care at Lyons VA and also CLC Medical Director. She is the Coordinator for Geriatric Resident rotations with Rutgers, Hoboken and JSMC. She started as Geriatrician in Lyons VA over 19 years back and started the Hospice and Palliative care program in VHANJ. She was instrumental in started Inpatient Hospice Unit at Lyons campus and in outpatient Palliative care consultation service. She has organized Palliative care and Geriatric symposiums in Lyons over the years. She is co-chair of CLC Culture Transformation Committee in CLC where we work on creating Culture change for veterans, families and staff. She has received many awards over the years, including Physician of the Year award in VA as well. Dr. Sidhu believes in medical student and resident Geriatric rotation and education.

Dr. Sidhu is currently NJAMDA President and NJLTCLC President as well. She is involved in PALTC Education subcommittee as a volunteer. She is also Co-chair for VISN PI GEC committee.

Dr. Zahira Shamsi

Attending, CLC Short Term Rehabilitation Rotation VA NJ HCS
Core faculty
ABIM Board Certification: Geriatric Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine

Dr. Zahira Shamsi is the Geriatric Attending on Olympic pavilion in the CLC, Extended-care services. Initially she started as a Geriatric consultant and Clinical Assistant Professor with Robert Wood Johnson medical school and trained medical residents in geriatrics from Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center, St. Peters Medical Center and Princeton University for 8 years. She joined the VA in 2003 as an employee and worked on the geriatric psychiatry unit. For the last 5 years she has been on the subacute rehabilitation unit. This is a very active unit with a rapid turnover of admissions and discharges. The population has diverse pathology with difficult medical decision making. The team has to work closely with the nursing staff, Physiatrist as well as physical therapy and occupational therapy to make the transition into the community safe for the veteran. This is truly an example of exceptional interdisciplinary team.

Dr. Elliott Goytia

Medical Director Rural Health, Attending Home Based Primary Care Clinical Rotation, VA NJ HCS
Clinical Assistant Professor
ABIM Board Certification: Internal Medicine

Dr. Goytia is dedicated to the Geriatric Fellowship program educational initiatives and fulfills supervisory and teaching responsibilities for the Geriatric fellowship program. He assists the Program Director in the planning, implementation and operations of the Geriatric Fellowship Program. Furthermore, Dr. Goytia also assists in recruitment of future fellows to the program.  Dr. Goytia participates in the interview/selection process for our fellows. 

Dr. Victoria Lal

Attending, Geriatric Outpatient PACT Clinic Rotation, VA NJ HCS
ABIM Board Certification: Geriatric Medicine, Internal Medicine

Dr. Victoria Lal is the attending physician at Geri Clinic  at the Extended Care Services.  Dr. Lal joined the extended-care family in 2010 to provide long term care and outpatient care to veterans with complex, extensive medical and functional needs.  As an attending geriatrician, she collaborates with multidisciplinary health care teams for integrated patient centered care.  This includes quality of life improvement and counseling for Veterans and families.  She completed her Internal Medicine residency in NJ and Geriatrics fellowship in New York.  Dr. Lal has extensive experience in outpatient ambulatory care, urgent care, and hospital inpatient work.

Dr. Swati Nadkarni

Attending, Serenity House: Extended Care Service
Assistant Professor Co- Terminous
AAFP Board Certification: Geriatric Medicine, Family Medicine
American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine

Dr. Nadkarni joined the extended-care family to provide long-term medical services to veterans who have complex health care needs with extensive medical and psychiatric issues. She collaborates with multidisciplinary health care team which provides well integrated patient centered care. Dr. Nadkarni has been active in resident teaching and didactics and manages resident evaluations online in New Innovations. Dr. Nadkarni served as the chief resident at JFK family practice and completed her geriatric fellowship in New Jersey.  Before joining the VA, Dr. Nadkarni was in private practice which spanned outpatient, inpatient, long-term care, subacute rehabilitation and she also participated in clinical teaching to family practice residents and nurse practitioner students.

Dr. Mona Patel

Attending, Hospice Palliative Care Clinical Rotation, VA NJ HCS
AOBIM Board Certification: Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Internal Medicine

Dr. Kathuria has participated in teaching medical students, physician residents, physician fellows and nurse practitioner students both in internal medicine as well as hospice and palliative medicine over the course of the last 20 years. She has worked in the hospital setting as a hospitalist, and as a Palliative and Hospice Medicine Specialist in the long term care setting, outpatient clinic, home care and hospice. She was also Associate Program Director of the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship for Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine at MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care Fellowship in New York from 2015-2018. She has participated in publications, national presentations and is a fellow of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

Dr. Jane H. Luo

Attending, CLC Dementia Unit Clinical Rotation, VA NJ HCS
Clinical Assistant Professor
ABIM Board Certification: Geriatric Medicine, Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Internal Medicine

Dr. Luo jointed Extended Care, VANJ HCS in 2002 after graduated from Geriatric fellowship program from RWJ Medical School in 1999 and had spent 3 years as an assistant professor in Geriatric department of Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Currently She is in Sunshine City/1C, a secured unit for veterans with dementia and disturbed behaviors, and Geriatric consultation clinic, helping their primary cares in assessment and management of complicated geriatric issues.

Dr. Luo’s academic interests are Dementia and dementia related issues, appropriate medication use in elderly, fighting frailty and healthy/graceful aging. For years she has been actively involved in Dementia education and healthy aging within VA and in the Community. She was the chair of Dementia Committee for VANJ HCS from 2008 to 2019. Additionally, one of Dr. Luo’s extracurricular interests is how herbs and acupuncture/acupressure can improve aging process and minimize frailty.

Dr. Hany Tawfik

Medical Director Home Based Primary Care
Attending HBPC Clinical Rotation VA NJ HCS

Dr. Tawfik joined the VANJHCS, in September 2014, at the Extended Care Service to work as HBPC Medical Director. Dr. Tawfik provides medical services to Veterans, most of them above age of 80, whom have complex health care needs and for those which impede access to clinic visits. Dr. Tawfik supervises a multidisciplinary health care teams which provides well integrated patient centered care. Dr. Tawfik also joins the medical residents and geriatric fellows for home visits for educational purposes. In April 2015, Dr. Tawfik received training to train providers (MD, DO, PA and NP) regarding the Goals of Care Conversations and life sustaining treatments for end of life discussion. Since that time, Dr. Tawfik has been training all providers in the VANJHCS.

Dr. Bindhu Thomas

Attending VA NJ HCS
ABFM Board Certification: Geriatric Medicine, Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Family Medicine

In her previous role as an Assistant Professor at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Thomas had a vital role in the delivery of care for outpatients, in-patients, consultative geriatric medicine, and end of life and for nursing home residents. She took the lead in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Aging’s out-patient practice. She was also the Medical Director of the teaching nursing home, with significant administrative responsibility. As an educator, Dr. Thomas was instrumental in the teaching of geriatric medicine to medical students, post-graduate trainees and continuing medical education for practicing physicians at Columbia. Dr. Thomas has assisted in the geriatrics and supportive care curriculum development throughout the continuum. She also developed the curriculum and was the geriatrics educator at the CUNY Medical School Physician Assistant Program. Philosophically, Dr. Thomas believes that our future clinicians need to be taught to consider the needs of the whole person and focus on function and quality of life. As such, she feels it an obligation to provide a venue for geriatric medicine education to our future clinicians through resident teaching, geriatric fellowship and have creative solutions to support our non-specialist clinicians to provide excellent geriatric care through an ongoing faculty development seminars.

Dr. Patricia White-Thorpe

Pharmacy Manager, CLC Pharmacy Elective
Pharm D University of Florida College of Pharmacy

Dr. Katherine Fung

Attending, Assistant Professor of Medicine
ABIM Board Certification: Geriatric Medicine, Internal Medicine

Dr. Fung graduated from Rowan University, School of Osteopathic Medicine, in New Jersey. She completed her Internal Medicine residency training at Bayonne Medical Center/Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine. She completed her Geriatric Fellowship at Hackensack University Medical Center/Rutgers, New Jersey Medical School (NJMS). Before medical school, she was interested in the legal aspect of medicine and healthcare, and she completed her Master of Science degree in health law at Seton Hall Law School. After graduated from the Geriatric fellowship, she served the prison patients at the New Jersey state prison systems prior to joining NJMS. Now, she will continue to serve the adult/geriatric patients here and help develop the Geriatric Program at NJMS.