Geriatrics training in jeopardy
WASHINGTON – Three programs that train doctors and other caregivers to treat the special needs of older patients would be eliminated under a spending bill Congress adopted last week, on the advice of the Bush administration.
But the decision was at odds with another administration event this month. The 2005 White House Conference on Aging ended with delegates adopting a top-10 list of policy recommendations for the next decade – two of which called for more geriatrics training for health care professionals in anticipation of the oldest of the baby boom generation reaching age 65 in 2011.
There is already a shortage of trained geriatricians, or physicians who specialize in the needs of people 65 and older, and the budget decision will exacerbate that problem, said Dr. Jane Potter, president-elect of the American Geriatrics Society and a professor of geriatric medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
“It’s extra shortsighted because of the demographic explosion of people who need care,” said Potter. “Every year that programs aren’t funded, the worse the situation gets.”
Of the nation’s 650,000 practicing physicians, only 6,776 are geriatricians, according to the Alliance for Aging Research.
The numbers don’t bode well for the 78 million baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964. The research alliance estimates the United States will need 36,000 geriatricians by 2030. At the pace at which doctors are earning certification in geriatrics, the country will have 11,000 by that time.
The three eliminated programs each year supported 60 to 80 medical school fellowships to train physicians, dentists and mental health professionals in geriatrics; financial awards for 70 geriatricians who are junior faculty members at medical schools; and 41 Geriatric Education Centers around the country that train doctors and other caregivers such as social workers to care for the elderly.
The Geriatric Education Center at Michigan State University in East Lansing has trained more than 1,000 people since it started in 1995. Programs have included hands-on training at a large nursing home nearby and seminars to teach judges about visual, hearing and other impairments of the elderly.
Without the federal funding, the center won’t be able to operate, said Dr. William Wadland, chairman of the Family Practice Department at MSU’s College of Human Medicine.
“It’s unfortunate that legislators don’t see that this is really where the medical demographic shift is going,” Wadland said.
The Bush administration earlier this year recommended giving no money to the three geriatrics training programs for the fiscal year that began in October.
“Continuing subsidies to entice people to enter medical careers that already pay handsomely isn’t the best use of taxpayers’ dollars,” said Scott Milburn, spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget. He added that the programs can’t prove how long the professionals that they train actually stay in jobs that serve elderly patients.
The program cut was included in the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education spending bill that was approved by Congress last week. The bill now goes to President Bush, who is expected to sign it.
The federal government budgeted $31.5 million for the three geriatric programs in the last fiscal year.
Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, who heads the House budget panel that decided to eliminate the three programs, said he cut about 30 programs in all because the House’s Republican leadership gave him $1.4 billion less to spend than in 2005. Programs that were spared included education for low-income children, assistance for poor people to pay their heating bills and medical research.