Heard on NPR’s Fresh Air June 17, 20191:50 PM ET
Geriatrics is a specialty that should adapt and change with each patient, says physician and author Louise Aronson. “I need to be a different sort of doctor for people at different ages and phases of old age.”

Dr. Louise Aronson says the U.S. doesn’t have nearly enough geriatricians — physicians devoted to the health and care of older people: “There may be maybe six or seven thousand geriatricians,” she says. “Compare that to the membership of the pediatric society, which is about 70,000.”

Aronson is a geriatrician and a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She notes that older adults make up a much larger percentage of hospital stays than their pediatric counterparts. The result, she says, is that many geriatricians wind up focusing on “the oldest and the frailest” — rather than concentrating on healthy aging.

READ MORE ON THIS TOPIC:  https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/17/732737956/a-clearer-map-for-aging-elderhood-shows-how-geriatricians-can-help?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20190623&utm_campaign

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