Dear friends, clients and associates,

An article published in this week's J Weekly of Northern California highlights a little known but worrisome fact: Fewer and fewer doctors are going into Geriatrics because it is one of the lowest-paying specialties in the medical field (see first article below). Unless we figure out how to incentivize medical students to become Geriatricians, aging boomers can plan on experiencing critical shortages of elder care doctor specialists in the next 20 years, just when they'll need them most.

Matt Sedensky's terrific AP story about this problem gives us a great glimpse into the importance of having doctors who are specially-trained to understand and respond to a wide range of medical needs of seniors.  "Geriatricians have expertise in areas that general internists don't, including the changes in cognitive ability, mood, gait, balance, and continence, as well as the effects of drugs on older individuals," he writes, and "are best equipped to respond when an older patient has multiple medical problems."

So if you don't want to throw yourself or your grandparents under the bus, take an interest in this issue and see what improvements you can effect by your votes and other choices and decisions you may have the opportunity to make, relative to this matter, as time goes on.

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend and are ready to jump into the lovely, holiday hustle and bustle of December.  Though it's our busiest period, I'm looking forward to it, because we get to thank and to celebrate with many of the people who made our year a successful one.  And to our beloved senior friends, enjoy the holidays but please take good care of yourselves because, as we now know, good Geriatricians are few and far between.

Shirley Cohen 

Founder & CEO  

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