Mindy J. Fain, MD is the Anne and Alden Hart Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona, College of Medicine, Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatric Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine. She is the Chief of the Division of Geriatrics, General Internal Medicine and Palliative Medicine in the Department of Medicine, and leads the geriatric clinical and educational programs at the UA Health Sciences Center. Dr. Fain and Dr. Janko Nikolich-Zugich together co-direct the Arizona Center on Aging, a Board of Regents Center of Excellence, in an alliance that is dedicated to building translational aging research across the continuum. Dr. Fain is also the President of the American Academy of Home Care Medicine.
As Medical Director for the Home-based Primary Care Program at the Southern Arizona VA Healthcare System for over twenty-five years, Dr. Fain provided care in the home for older veterans with advancing chronic illness, and their families, as part of an interdisciplinary health care team. She developed and directed a state-of-the-art telehealth program, and is a national leader in developing high value home and community team-based models to care for people with serious illness. She leads two critically important statewide educational grants: the Arizona Geriatric Education Center, a federally funded geriatric program to train health professionals across the state, to promote excellence in the care of vulnerable seniors; and the Arizona Reynolds Program of Applied Geriatrics, a state-wide physician training program funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation to improve the care of frail, older adults.
In 2003, Dr. Fain was named a Local Legend from Arizona, a national recognition by U.S. Congressman Jim Kolbe and the American Medical Women’s Association. She was appointed Chair, Governor’s Aging and Long Term Care Healthcare Workforce Task Force in 2008 to develop a healthcare workforce plan to meet the needs of the 21st Century, and was a member of the Senior and Aging Issue Advisory Council, the Honorable Gabrielle Giffords, 8th District, House of Representatives, Congress of the United States. She currently serves on the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Geriatric Medicine Board, the American Academy of Home Care Medicine board, and is a Member of the National Institute on Aging Behavior and Social Science of Aging Review panel. Her research area of interest is frailty, and she has been instrumental in facilitating translational work in this area, bridging the worlds of scientists and clinicians. She was awarded the Anne and Alden Hart Chair in recognition of her contributions to the University of Arizona.