Thinking about, caring about, and working to serve the needs of the elderly is what keeps Dr. Theresa Redling, DO, FACP invigorated and engaged. Since 2014 she has served on the Advisory board of Felician University’s Institute for Gerontology (IFG), which works to address the human, societal, and health conditions of a growing elderly population.

Dr. Theresa Redling

Dr. Redling is a geriatrician, who also specializes in internal medicine and palliative care. For the last nine years she has served as the Director of Geriatric Health and Disease Management at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston. Dr. Redling went to Rutgers University, then on to the New Jersey School of Osteopathic Medicine (now Rowan University) before serving her medical residency at Morristown Memorial Hospital. She trained in Geriatrics at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City where she had a Geriatric Fellowship. After finishing her fellowship in 1993 she served in various leadership positions in both New York and New Jersey including teaching geriatrics at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. Her current practice is limited to caring for patients over the age of 65 with a focus on elders with complex medical issues such as dementia.

Dr. Redling also focuses on successful aging which makes her experience and insights uniquely helpful to the IFG advisory board. “Felician asked me and other individuals who have different areas of expertise in gerontology to share ideas in program development to help the University educate students in multiple areas of specialties including nursing, social service work, psychology, as well as to provide information and ideas to support the community surrounding the college.” Over the years Dr. Redling and other board members have worked together on, “some very interesting interdisciplinary programs that because of the Institute for Gerontology actually impact teaching,” said Dr. Redling.

Felician’s focus on the Franciscan core value of respect for human dignity makes the care of the elderly of utmost importance said Dr. Redling. That emphasis and focus on the aging is very important to Dr. Redling who also appreciates that Felician has studied and surveyed students’ attitudes towards aging saying, “I think the whole concept basically filters through all aspects of teaching and education at Felician University.”