Atul Gawande writes, for the New Yorker, about the state of geriatric medicine. The article seeks to investigate whether medicine can make old age easier, give that we are living longer.

One cogent point revealed in the piece is that many doctors avoid the practice geriatrics, (and this is me putting words into the article) have a disdain for the practice.

“Mainstream doctors are turned off by geriatrics, and that’s because they do not have the faculties to cope with the Old Crock,” Felix Silverstone, the geriatrician, explained to me. “The Old Crock is deaf. The Old Crock has poor vision. The Old Crock’s memory might be somewhat impaired. With the Old Crock, you have to slow down, because he asks you to repeat what you are saying or asking. And the Old Crock doesn’t just have a chief complaint—the Old Crock has fifteen chief complaints. How in the world are you going to cope with all of them? You’re overwhelmed. Besides, he’s had a number of these things for fifty years or so. You’re not going to cure something he’s had for fifty years. He has high blood pressure. He has diabetes. He has arthritis. There’s nothing glamorous about taking care of any of those things.”

via arts & letters daily