By: Sara Sandless
Now Hiring: Geriatricians!
Between the years of 1946 and 1964 in post-WW2 America, approximately 40% of the world’s population (at that time) was born. This generation of Americans were known as “The Baby Boomers”, and are now reaching an age at which they require a significant amount of medical care and assistance- care that is, at the moment, in great shortage in America.
A shortage of professionals in the specific field of medical care aimed at the elderly, called geriatrics, is putting great stress on America’s older generation. In fact, less than 1% of doctors and nurses educated in America specialize in geriatrics, while 80% of all American Citizens ages 65 and up have been diagnosed with one or more chronic illness(es).
It would seem to be a reasonable choice to enter as a licensed professional into this field of medicine, with competition so low, but a number of factors limit the younger generation’s ability to even choose a career in that area of study. For example, in 2000, 89% of all medical schools began requiring students to have at least some exposure to geriatrics, but the training came too little and too late. Only 45% of graduates claimed that they felt their instruction in geriatrics was adequate and only half of all graduates assumed that they would be prepared to provide long term medical care in this field.
Similarly, if medical students choose to perform a cost-benefit analysis, they would find that the marginal cost of limited financial return would outweigh the marginal benefit of having high probability of employment. Because many members of the elderly generation are retired and have no steady source of income, most of them rely on medicare to supply their health needs. The benefit of medicare as a public good has the negative externality of little compensation for the doctors that treat patients utilizing that service. That, combined with the high cost of procuring a medical degree, would put incoming doctors at a threatening level of debt.
The government, however, realizes the financial risks associated with procuring a degree in this field and offers incentives to those wishing specialize in this area of study. In 2005, South Carolina approved a loan forgiveness program in which $35,000 of student loan debt procured during medical school will be forgiven for each year the physician practices geriatrics in South Carolina. This incentive slightly offsets the negative externality of Medicare in this field of medicine, but one state’s actions hardly offsets this shortage affecting the entire nation.
Below is a chart labeling the availability of fellowship positions specializing in Geriatrics, and, as you can see, in 2011, less than 60% of the available positions were filled. Concerns arise when viewing the general trend of the chart as it continuously increases in open positions and the green line dips lower.
The question still prevails, and, unless additional incentives are proposed, the issue of how America will care for its elderly citizens remains at large. With this huge influx of baby boomers around that require medical care and assistance, will the government take additional action to ensure their safety? Or will this dying field continue to suffer?
Sources
"IMF -- International Monetary Fund Home Page." IMF -- International Monetary Fund Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2014. <http://www.imf.org>.
"Geriatric Nursing Facts." Nurse News. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbiltnurse/2012/04/geriatric-nursing-facts/>.
The problem isn't too few people going into geriatrics, it is too few companies hiring people with less than a masters degree for geriatrics. Most companies require a minimum of a bachelors degree to be a doctor's aid and because so few people want to put in that kind of work and pile up that much dept to work at minimum wage there is an even lower number of people who want to go any farther than that to actually be geriatric nurses or doctors. However there are more nurses and doctors than aids because of wage. An aid does everything from hauling around blankets to cleaning up messes. A doctor or nurse only prescribes medication or administers medication or puts together physical therapy which the aid then has to carry out. Point being that we have too few aids because they do all of the work with none of the pay and until that practice is changed we will always have too few people in a geriatric field.
ReplyDeleteA very good piece. In this day and age students and young adults are not being informed about the vacant jobs in our market. In so basic needs are not being met for example as you said the geriatrics. Teachers and schools should get the information out to students of what the job markets are so that the job market would be full.
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