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As part of its ongoing effort to encourage trainees of all backgrounds to pursue careers in geriatrics, the American Geriatrics Society has begun a multifaceted campaign to attract residents to the field.
At a strategic planning meeting in June of 2005, the AGS' Board of Directors agreed to step up efforts to recruit residents into geriatrics in a number of ways. On the heels of the meeting, several members with an interest in resident recruitment - including Drs. Maura Brennan, Jane Potter, Barbara Resnick, Sandra Bellantonio, Hollis Day, Irene Hamrick, and Carmel Dyer -- formed AGS' new Resident Recruitment Work Group, to implement these and other recruitment strategies. Another 30 AGS members are assisting this core group by serving as an ad hoc advisory group.
"Given the acute and growing nationwide shortage of geriatricians, we decided we needed to do more, now, to encourage residents to consider geriatrics," explains Dr. Brennan, work group chair, director of the Geriatric Consultation Program at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, and new geriatric fellow at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.
Many of the work group's efforts to date have focused on encouraging residents to attend AGS' Annual Scientific Meeting. To that end, the work group established a Resident Special Interest Group (SIG) that met for the first time during AGS' 2006 annual meeting in Chicago in May. All SIGS meet during the annual meeting, and AGS has long had both a student SIG for medical students, and comparable Fellows-in-Training group for those in fellowship programs. Until this year, however, there was no such group exclusively for residents.
This year, for the first year, AGS also kept tabs on the number of residents attending the annual meeting. It was 90, a number that work group members hope to top next year.
"Doing more to attract residents to the annual meeting is very important," says Dr. Potter, work group member, AGS President, and director of the section of geriatric medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. "Surveys have found that residents are far more likely to pursue fellowships in geriatrics if they have exposure to geriatrics during their residency or a good mentor in the field. The annual meeting provides exposure to both geriatrics and to potential mentors, and attendance at the meeting could well be the deciding factor for those considering a career in geriatrics."
The work group's plans call for a special resident poster session during the 2007 and subsequent annual meetings, and for annual resident poster awards starting next year. (There is already a student poster session and several student awards.) Residents who attend the 2007 annual meeting will also wear new "Resident" ribbons to distinguish them from students and fellows. In addition, the meeting's concluding plenary session will, for the first time, feature a quiz-show like competition in which teams made up primarily of residents, and some fellows, will answer questions about recent research in geriatrics.
A new "Resident" page, for and about residents, on the AGS Web site is in the works as well. There are also plans to create resident chapters of the AGS at medical training programs nationwide. AGS now counts 40 student chapters nationwide.
"There are many reasons geriatrics should attract the best and the brightest house officers," Dr. Brennan says. "It combines rigor of mind with a holistic, patient-based approach and demands both interpersonal communication skills and complex medical decision making. The rewards are great; we simply need to convey them more clearly to those in training. The time to do that is now."
Sidebar: AGS' New Web-based "Careers in Geriatrics" Recruitment Tool Highlights the Diverse, Rewarding Career Opportunities A Background in Geriatrics Affords
To give potential recruits a sense of the myriad career opportunities a background in geriatrics affords, AGS recently launched its new "Careers in Geriatrics" Web page.
The page profiles geriatrics healthcare professionals who've pursued a wide array of careers. The introduction notes that people with training in geriatrics are needed in medicine, nursing, social work, public health, government and many other areas.
The first three profiles posted to the page focus on careers in academic medicine, clinical practice and the health industry. Over the coming months, more profiles will be added, including profiles of geriatric nurses, pharmacists, social workers and other providers who care for older adults.
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