ATLANTA — The U.S. is currently facing a shortage of physicians who specialize in a unique and complex population. They are called geriatricians.
Geriatricians are physician experts in caring for and treating illnesses in the elderly population, however, the Alzheimer’s Association says the U.S. needs to triple the number of geriatricians by 2050 to properly care for the growing population of older adults.
However, the shortage is not new to many physicians who are currently in the field. Dr. Wanda Jirau-Rosaly is a geriatric physician and an Associate Professor at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University and she told 11Alive that experts have been tracking the shortage for years.
“The American Geriatric Society has been stating for many years a shortage that we have on geriatricians and as the population gets older, we actually are going to see a bigger shortage," she said.
Georgians are not exempt. Currently, the state has around 134 geriatricians actively working in the field, according to the American Geriatric Society, but while demand is expected to increase exponentially over the next few decades, the supply of geriatricians is stagnant.
Jirau-Rosaly said that a lack of interest in geriatrics is the cause of shortage.
“First of all, I think there's the exposure of medical students. They might be interested in geriatrics, but once they go to other specialties, they might find interest in the other specialties and kind of go in that route," she said.
This is caused by multiple factors, including complexities within the job.
“Trying to understand if something is related to their aging process or medication-related or something related to a new diagnosis or a new medical condition is very complex. So taking care of a geriatric patient cannot be done in 20 minutes,” Jirau-Rosaly said.
But she believes the main cause is low compensation.
“You don't necessarily get paid as much, particularly if you were not in a hospital base," she said. "If you were having your own clinic and you're getting paid by Medicare or Medicaid to see your patients, then you don't necessarily make as much as other physicians.”
With all of these factors working in hand, very few students enter the geriatric field.
In fact, Jirau-Rosaly said that only two to three students come to see her for a geriatric rotation each year, but those already low numbers do not even translate over to a fellowship.
When it comes to a solution, the AGS believes that increasing the number of experts in the field is not the only answer. They’re advocating for more public information to be available to older adults and their caregivers and pushing to make government policy that supports all people as they age.
In addition, healthcare professionals outside of geriatrics should also have more training in geriatric medicine to be able to understand and care for more complex illnesses within the elderly population.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, half of the primary care physicians reported that they do not feel adequately prepared to care for individuals with illnesses like Alzheimer’s and other dementias, and more than 25% reported being “only sometimes” or “never” comfortable answering patient questions about the illnesses.
These statistics relay obvious gaps in the system when it comes to caring for older adults, and Jirau-Rosaly believes if those gaps are not closed soon, the geriatric workforce will continue to dwindle.
“Taking care of an older adult is very complex, and unless we get some sort of changes happening higher above us, I don't think that the shortage is ever going to finish,” she said.