Are you considering pursuing a career within the medical field? If so, one area of great need that you might want to consider specializing in is the area of geriatrics. While this area currently does not receive the attention it deserves, it seems as if there is a growing movement toward specialization in this area. Yet, there currently are no requirements for becoming educated in this field when attending medical school.

According to an article recently published in the New York Times by Dr. Rosanne M. Leipzig, who is a physician as well as a professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the current lack of geriatrics training is quite alarming. Dr. Leipzig maintains that the needs of elderly patients are far greater than their younger counterparts, with even the needs of a patient in her 80s differing quite substantially from the needs of those in their 50s. As a result, elderly patients are routinely provided with unnecessary treatments or treatments that cause more harm than they do good.

The irony is that Dr. Leipzig states all medical students must complete clinical experience within the pediatrics and obstetrics fields, despite that many will never treat children or deliver a baby during their careers. Yet, there are no requirements to complete clinical training in the area of geriatrics, despite the fact that 32% of the average surgical car doctor’s patient load will be 65 or older. For those doctors involved in medical specialty care, approximately 43% of the patient load will be 65 or older and approximately 485 of all inpatient hospital stays fall within this age group as well. .
Another irony? Medicare, which is responsible for providing health insurance coverage to patients who are 65 years-old or older, provides $8 billion each year toward residency training. Yet, despite contributing such a significant amount of money toward training, the program does not require any of the training to focus on geriatric care.

For the sake of the elderly, however, some changes may be on the horizon. Thanks to Dr. Leipzig and her colleagues, the issue is gaining a greater amount of attention. Recently, she and a group of doctors and educators came together to publish a set of minimum abilities medical students should possess before they can graduate. The checklist, which was published in the journal Academic Medicine, was nicknamed the “don’t kill Granny” list because of the attention it gave to providing proper care to elderly patients.

Some items included in the list were:

· Assessing the ability of a patient to care for him or her self
· Recognizing the atypical presentations associated with common diseases
· Preventing falls
· Recognizing the potential hazards associated with hospitalization
· Determining treatments based on the prognosis of the patient as well as the patient’s personal preferences

Dr. Leipzig and her colleagues aren’t the only ones who are concerned about the medical care being provided to elderly individuals. The Institute of Medicine, for example, issued a report in 2008 entitled “Retooling for an Aging America.” This report also emphasized the importance of requiring health care professionals to demonstrate their abilities to care for elderly patients. It will take more than just making suggestions, however, to bring about real change. As Dr. Leipzig suggests, Medicare should focus on financing training within nursing homes and medical boards should require doctors to demonstrate competencies in geriatric care in before they receive licensing and certification.
Although these changes may not occur in the very near future, they are most certainly on the horizon. Therefore, to get ahead of the licensing game and in order to help provide better care to an increasingly growing population, getting training in geriatric healthcare is certainly a smart move!