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New model for geriatric care needed, Gawande says

Posted by Elizabeth Cooney December 29, 2008 03:47 PM

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?"

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Elizabeth Cooney is a former health reporter for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, where she also was a business reporter and an editor. Earlier in her career, she edited medical books and journals at Little, Brown, and worked for Boston magazine.

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