The elderly already use most medical treatment and care, and that share will continue to rise. Medicine is thus becoming more and more geriatric medicine. Are the doctors of tomorrow well prepared for this? We at Elderly Medicine have serious concerns about this. Upon entering the LUMC, almost every medical student envisions a career in the hospital, while most doctors work outside the hospital and have to go to work. We are apparently unable to make it clear that the hospital is only a small and shrinking part of the medical network that surrounds the citizen. Or maybe we don’t select our students well enough?
Future-proof training
In most hospital specialties, the labor market now has more than enough supply, and sometimes even a surplus, of specialists. This leads to unemployment, while there are major shortages of doctors outside the hospital, such as in geriatric medicine, social medicine and general practice medicine. Because in addition to acute treatment aimed at healing, the medicine of the future mainly needs generalists. And by that I mean experts in the field of recovery of the elderly, prevention, improvement of well-being – also in the last phase of life – and dealing with limitations. But our students are still not trained enough in this area. Fortunately, there is now a curriculum revision of the medical training in which we can make the training more future-proof.
Diseases never come alone
At the LUMC, general practice, internal geriatric medicine and the specialism of geriatric medicine have joined forces. Together, as the LUMC Center for Geriatric Medicine, we will work on new, better and appropriate care for the elderly. We are also conducting more and more scientific research together, and we will offer interdisciplinary training and refresher courses. Above all, we are taking on the joint challenge of making medical education more future-proof. Throughout the study (Bachelor and Master) we will give the doctor more knowledge and skills to deal with vulnerable people, such as the elderly. Important spearheads to stimulate the development of good doctors for the elderly are:
- Diseases never come alone.
- There is always more than just the physical.
- Not every patient wants to achieve the same goals with a treatment.
It is important to have many practical contacts with the elderly during your studies, and to talk to the elderly about what they want when they are ill, and what they need and expect from a doctor. The doctor of the future must be ready to face the challenges of the future, such as the aging population. And we will train that doctor with great enthusiasm!
