Global News recently reported that while the country’s population is aging, geriatrics – the medical field specializing in the care of older adults – unfortunately, is a dimnishing field of study in Canada. According to a recent report by the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS), a not-for-profit organization that works with medical schools to help residents apply for post-graduate medical training across Canada, only 11 of 421 third-year medicine residents chose geriatrics as their first choice in 2012. That’s only close to three percent.
If this trend continues, the implications could be serious. Those 64 and older make up Canada’s fastest-growing age group. By 2014, Statistics Canada estimates that there could be about 5.5 million seniors across Canada. By 2018, this demographic could increase to 6.4 million, according to projections. By 2051, about one in four Canadians is expected to be 65 or older. It’s geriatricians who would be looking after this ballooning demographic and we just don’t have enough of these specialists who help patients with memory, cognitive problems and mobility, for example.
Society’s negative attitude towards older adults seems to have spreaded to the medical field as well. A lot of currently-practising geriatricians hear disapproval comments from others all the time – “Why are you choosing this field?” “Why would you want to do that? you’re too smart to do that!” These are not exactly uplifting and motivating comments for a young medical student!
Compared to five to seven years ago, the decline in geriatricians has improved, but not fast enough. What should be improved is that geriatrics needs to be better introduced to medical residents going through their education. Students often only see the sickest of the sick among the frail elderly people who end up in hospitals. The medical students don’t have enough exposure to aging in general and to see the well seniors who may have complexities of their own, but are still functioning in the community.
More incentives should be set up to offer financial compensation and mentorships to foster interest or answer questions about the specialty in medical schools. Right now, geriatrics is a five-year training process, with the first three years spent on internal medicine and the final two years focused solely on geriatrics. Currently, there are only about 250 geriatricians across Canada. It’s a ratio of about 0.65 geriatricians per 10,000 population when compared to 10 times that for 10,000 population in paediatrics.
However, it’s good to hear that medical schools are trying to help usher in more geriatricians. According to Dr. Mark Walton, Assistant Dean of Post-Graduate Medical Education at McMaster University, geriatrics is now part of every rotation. While recent anti-aging experiments at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City have scientists talking seriously about the average lifespan rising by decades, possibly to 120 years, it’s all the more scary to know that the number of geriatricians has not been keeping pace with the aging population. So what’s the use of a longer lifespan?
More and more people are living to the century mark. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of centenarians in Canada jumped 53 percent to 5,825. Statistics Canada predicts the number will climb exponentially to 49,300 by 2051. As I’ve always said, it’s not the quantity of life that matters – it’s the quality of life that the older population desires. It’s high time for the government and the academic sector to focus on developing more geriatricians for our aging society.
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