Dr. Callahan graduated from St. Louis University School of Medicine in 1985. He completed his Internal Medicine residency at Baylor College of Medicine in 1988 and completed a fellowship in Health Services Research at Indiana University School of Medicine in 1991. He has a Certificate of Added Qualifications in Geriatric Medicine and his research, education, and clinical interests are in primary care geriatrics. He is a Research Scientist in the Regenstrief Institute and the founding Director of the Indiana University Center for Aging Research. In 1999-2000 he was a Visiting Scholar in the History and Psychopathology Research Program in the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. He is the Cornelius and Yvonne Pettinga Professor in Aging Research.
Dr. Callahan has received a Paul B. Beeson Physician Faculty Scholar in Aging Award from the American Federation for Aging Research and a Research Career Award from the National Institute on Aging. His research has been supported by the John A. Hartford Foundation, Inc, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the NIH. Locally, he received the Teaching Excellence Recognition Award at Indiana University in 1997 and the Tony and Mary Hulman Health Achievement Award for Excellence in Health Sciences Research in 1999. Dr. Callahan recently joined the Editorial Board of the Annals of Internal Medicine. He is a member of the national council for the Society of General Internal Medicine. Dr. Callahan's research focuses on strategies to improve the care of older adults in primary care. This research explores systems-level interventions to enable primary care physicians to deliver excellent care to older adults. His specific research interests include the recognition and treatment of late life depression and the care of older adults with dementia.