New model for geriatric care needed, Gawande says

Brigham and Women’s Hospital surgeon Dr. Atul Gawande questions how the nation's healthcare system pays the declining number of doctors trained to care for older people.

"There’s been a drastic decline in the number of geriatricians — and just 300 new ones are being trained each year — yet the number of people over 65 will double in the next 20 years," Gawande told the New York Times in a story posted today. "Those who work in geriatric care are among the worst paid in the health care system. Is the time I spend as a surgeon excising a patient’s cancer worth 10 times more than the time the primary care doctor spent finding the cancer in the first place?"