Julie P.W. Bynum, MD, MPH received her undergraduate degree from Union College in Schenectady NY (B.S. Biology and English Literature). While an undergraduate, she became interested in sociopolitical aspects of how we deliver health care to the elderly in our communities. Because of this interest, she obtained her degree in medicine and a Master’s of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. After 5 years in Baltimore, Dr. Bynum went to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, New Hampshire for a residency in internal medicine, with a focus on primary care, and a chief residency. She then returned to Johns Hopkins for a Research Fellowship in Geriatrics where she was the recipient of the Hartford/American Federation for Aging Research Academic Geriatrics Fellowship grant. After completing her training, Dr. Bynum returned to Dartmouth where she is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Community and Family Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School. She had an early career development award from the Pfizer/American Geriatric Society Foundation for Health in Aging Junior Faculty Scholars Program for Research on Health Outcomes in Geriatrics. Dr. Bynum’s major research interest lies in the area of the effectiveness and efficiency of health care delivery to high risk elderly including the old old and cognitively impaired. She has been developing and using Medicare claims-based methods to study this vulnerable population and performance of health care providers. Dr. Bynum’s recently awarded a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholars Program is to study how well local health care systems perform in supporting high quality decision-making among the oldest old.