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Dear Fellows, I hope each of you is having a fun and productive start to your year as a first- or second-year fellow. Transitions to new places, systems of care and new responsibilities can be challenging and I hope everyone is adjusting well. As usual, things are in full swing at the AGS, with grassroots advocacy efforts on behalf of quality elder healthcare ongoing at the local, state and federal levels. Prominent goals include ensuring that geriatric education is adequately funded, and that our elderly patients receive quality healthcare. As a reminder, the annual Gerontological Society of America (GSA) meeting will run from November 16-20, 2007 in San Francisco and the AGS' annual scientific meeting will run from April 30-May 4, 2008 in Washington, DC. The deadline for abstract submission for the AGS meeting is Friday December 7, 2007. The speaker for the annual fellows-in-training section breakfast will be Sharon Levine, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Director of Education, Geriatrics Section, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Boston University Medical Center. Dr. Levine will be addressing professional pathways for geriatric fellows. I can assure you this will be an energetic, enlightening and inspirational talk. We have two very exciting new programs scheduled for the AGS meeting that I want to mention briefly. First, we are planning a clinical skills workshop for all trainees, during which specific portions of the geriatric evaluation will be taught by experienced mentors. The second, discussed in greater detail below, is an AGS-sponsored community health fair in Union Station in downtown Washington, D.C. This will be run by trainees from all disciplines and will allow us to screen many in the general public for function and mobility as well as raise awareness of the AGS and its work. I encourage all fellows to participate in this exciting event. As we all know, there are far too few geriatricians to take care of the rapidly aging American population. In addition, the number of medical students and residents choosing to pursue geriatric fellowships is not large enough to keep up with demand. The additional articles in this fall newsletter focus on efforts to better prepare trainees to take care of older patients and efforts to further resident recruitment into geriatric fellowships. Rosanne M. Leipzig MD, PhD, professor of geriatrics and vice chair of education for the Mount Sinai Department of Medicine, has written a comprehensive article outlining the process by which competencies in areas of geriatric care for all medical students are being developed and integrated into medical school curricula. This effort is based on the principle that all future physicians, whether they become geriatricians or not, will be caring for older patients and need to be adept at handling cognitive disorders, gait assessment, mediation management, and self-care capacity to name just a few age-related health concerns. (See the article below for a full discussion of all competencies.) The second article, written by Maura Brennan, MD, of Baystate Medical Center and Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a leader in the AGS' new Resident Recruitment Work Group, details the efforts being made by the AGS to attract residents to the field of geriatrics. Among other things, she outlines ways that the annual scientific meeting continues to add programs designed specifically for trainees. The underlying message, however, is that we, as fellows, play an instrumental role in educating residents about the field, and should be helping to attract residents to geriatrics at our own institutions. The third article is a departure from medical training and geriatric recruitment initiatives, but equally interesting. Dr. Jason Karlawish, Associate Professor of Medicine and Associate Director of the University of Pennsylvania's Memory Center, has written a very enlightening and interesting piece on the moral and ethical factors involved in the decision to tell a patient he or she has Alzheimer's disease. This is an eventuality we all likely face and one that is never easy to manage. Dr. Karlawish poses some very thoughtful issues to consider when disclosing this information and stresses the importance of family and caregiver education in the process. I hope you find this newsletter as interesting as I have. As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions, concerns or suggestions at andy.rosenzweig@uphs.upenn.edu -- and plan on serving as leaders at the health fair in Washington, D.C. during the spring meeting! Have a great year! Andrew Rosenzweig, MD 2007-2008 AGS FIT Chairperson Geriatric Medicine Fellow University of Pennsylvania Health System Philadelphia, PA |
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