Dr. Cheryl Woodson

spent more than 30 years teaching and practicing Geriatric Medicine. She also provided leadership in eldercare public policy while raising a family and navigating her mother’s ten-year journey with Alzheimer’s disease. A graduate of the Philadelphia High School of Girls, Wesleyan University, in Middletown, CT, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr. Woodson completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. After a Geriatrics fellowship at UCLA, she taught medical school for ten years (at The University of Chicago and Northwestern.) Then, she developed Geriatrics services for a community health system before founding Woodson Center for Adult Health Care: when you’ve outgrown the kid stuff. The Center became the only community-based, privately-owned, subspecialty-level Geriatrics practice in the nation that also guided younger adults to AGE EXCELLENTLY. Despite an 80% Medicare patient base (including managed care and dual-eligible,) she led the Center successfully for twelve years, earning excellent quality and patient satisfaction metrics. Strong care coordination and practice management strategies resulted in so few hospitalizations; she was able to stop inpatient practice in year seven. Board-certified in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American Geriatrics Society, she is a trustee of the Retirement Research Foundation and serves several Chicago-area organizations. Dr. Woodson answered the call to prepare a broader audience to “Surf the Silver Tsunami” and meet the exploding needs of America’s seniors. She left clinical practice in 2012. An informative, inspiring, and entertaining speaker whom the New York Times called “a blunt and funny woman,” she shoots from the hip and from the heart, with a unique perspective: cutting-edge. Dr. Woodson is a frequent media guest. Recently, she served as a panelist at Joan Lunden’s caregiver Camp Reveille, the Washington Post Conference on Caregiving, and “Influential Women Weigh in on Caregiving <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMDO1RE1vbY> (Tracks 16.58-23.20).