Older Patients Are People Too I’m so pleased to read about medical schools adding courses in geriatrics that include hearing from and engaging with healthy seniors. When you are a clinician, you only see people when they are ill, so it’s easy to believe that the only type of senior citizens that exist are sick ones. So it’s critical to realize that mostly people are healthy and living full lives—even people who are in their 70’s, 80’s, and beyond! Dispelling the notion that seniors are ‘too old to treat,’ or ‘should expect to be tired, lazy or depressed,’ is critical to being a great doctor or nurse. Not long ago when my mother was ill and in a rehab unit, her doctor told her she only had a week or so to live. Her reply was ‘If you stay my doctor that’s true.’ She ignored his advice to get into Hospice care and she continued to live another 2 years. Selected Excerpt: “Unfortunately, most education takes place within the hospital,” he told me. “If you’re only seeing the hospitalized elderly, you’re seeing the debilitated, the physically deteriorating, the demented. It’s easy to pick up ageist stereotypes.” …see more