Now, where are those matches at the end of this tunnel?
As President of the British Geriatrics Society, I felt (reluctantly) that I must reply to the letter from Dr Ross1 regarding the issues around staffing the acute medical take. My reluctance stems from a distaste for an unseemly squabble between specialty colleagues, but the rude and inaccurate picture of our specialty he paints (among a confusing mixture of metaphors) cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.
I am unclear as to what Dr Ross hoped to achieve by his letter – he seems to look back fondly to a time when all wards were staffed by nurses wearing starched aprons and caps, all consultants were treated as fountains of all knowledge who could not be questioned, and when Cinderella specialties knew their place.
He appears to be unaware that frail, older people make up a large proportion of the acute medical take and that the evidence for effective care of these patients is clear – they are significantly more likely to be alive and living in their own homes if they receive comprehensive geriatric assessment.2
In many hospitals, the acute medical take would collapse without the contribution of geriatric medicine, a role they have thorough preparation for as all geriatric trainees in the country train in both general internal medicine and geriatrics.
While I understand his frustrations at other specialty colleagues pulling out of acute internal medicine, may I respectfully suggest he refrains from making pejorative comments on matters in which he clearly has little understanding. I hope he may be prepared to learn more about the contribution of geriatric medicine in many areas of the hospital as outlined in a recent article written by Dr David Oliver and myself.3
Conflicts of interest
The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.
- © Royal College of Physicians 2017. All rights reserved.
References
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- Ross CN.
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- Ellis G.
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- Oliver D
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