Two converging trends - rapid growth in the population of older Americans and declining numbers of geriatricians practicing in the U.S. - are forcing the field of geriatrics to refine its scope, according to a series of articles on the future of the field in October's Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS). Over the next two decades, the number of older Americans will nearly double, to 70 million. But the number of geriatricians, physicians who have advanced training to meet the unique health care needs of older patients, in the U.S. is expected, at best, to stay steady at roughly 7,500. "As the recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, Retooling for an Aging America, confirms, there won't be nearly enough geriatricians to care for the growing number of older Americans," says the University of South Carolina...
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