title: Geriatric medicine: whose specialty?
abstract: The recommendation of the 1978 report of the Institute of Medicine, Washington, D.C., states that there should not be "a formal practice specialty in geriatrics." The United Kingdom has a comprehensive geriatric service based on a separate specialty of geriatric medicine. This speciality was developed before the National Health Service in 1948. The future of geriatric medicine is not clearly defined. It should continue, I believe, as a separate speciality but with deliberate policies to bring it back into "mainstream medicine." This will involve closer integration with family practice, internal medicine, and psychiatry. While I realize that the operation of the geriatric service in Edinburgh, where I work, could not simply be transplanted into an American setting, the principles of geriatric care ought to be applied within a specialist service if the increasing problems of the aging in American society are to be adequately met.
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005853:Geriatrics / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D013038:Specialization / Q000639:trends*; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States