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By Maura Brennan, MD All of us recognize that there will not be enough geriatricians to care for aging Americans in the decades ahead. In fact, the number of certified geriatricians has declined since many practitioners have allowed their CAQs to lapse. Our field has been validated as a fully-recognized specialty with 'board' status but this will not necessarily result in an immediate increase in the numbers of those who choose geriatrics as a career. Thus, recruitment of trainees into geriatrics is a top priority of the American Geriatrics Society. There are many reasons why recruitment is a challenge. These include negative images of aging in our youth-oriented society, reimbursement and systems of care obstacles, a frequent absence of role models in medical school and residency, and a lack of attention to geriatric principles and standards of care throughout medical training. The geriatric content of medical school and residency curricula is often more nominal than substantive and what exists is frequently disjointed and episodic. In 2005, under the leadership of then incoming president Dr. Jane Potter (University of Nebraska Medical College), AGS formed a task force to increase recruitment of residents into geriatrics; I was assigned to head the initiative. Prior to that point we had activities targeting medical students and fellows but virtually no outreach activities seeking to attract residents into the field. We began with a resident focus group at the 2005 annual scientific meeting in Florida. Many changes have occurred in the intervening two and a half years. We now have free electronic membership for all residents who wish to join AGS, reduced fees to attend national meetings and have moved to establish institution-based resident AGS chapters. (Thus far, Baystate Medical Center and Eastern Carolina have resident chapters and a number of other programs are in the process of applying). There have also been changes to the AGS Web site that make it more welcoming to residents; there is now a resident tab with useful information under the trainee button on the home page. AGS currently has about 200 resident members. The face of the national meetings is changing and has become friendlier to resident attendees. In 2005 there were no sessions or programs targeting resident needs. By 2007 we had piloted a resident mentoring program, established a separate resident poster competition with prizes, and instituted a residents' Special Interest Group. About 50 residents attended the annual meeting in Seattle last spring. The final plenary session of the conference consisted of an update of the recent literature in quiz show format. This featured teams of residents competing to demonstrate their geriatric knowledge. AGS has generously supported these activities both financially and organizationally. Next year we will continue all of these programs. In addition, we plan a fellowship fair and an expanded mentoring program, and will offer a "clinical skills workshop" that will be particularly attractive to residents and other trainees. Residents, fellows, and other trainees will also run an AGS-sponsored community health fair at Union Station in downtown D.C. The focus will be on falls risk assessment and other common geriatric conditions. The effort is being led by Dr. Marc Rothman, a former FIT chairperson. The residency recruitment task force welcomes your energy and insights. You have all just chosen geriatrics as a career and have unique insights into what motivates young physicians to commit to the field despite all the obstacles mentioned earlier in this article. There are a number of ways in which you can be enormously helpful as we move forward with this project. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
Your enthusiasm and ideas will be critical for the success of this important project. The involved faculty welcomes your participation; we all look forward to hearing your ideas. I hope that many of you will contact me (maura.brennan@bhs.org) and volunteer to help. I would be delighted to have the opportunity to get to know you better as we work toward increasing resident recruitment into geriatrics. All of us share the same goal: we need all the man- and woman-power that we can get to achieve our objective. Charles Dickens said it well in Chapter 2 of Barnaby Rudge. "Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly on those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigor." |
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