Geriatric medicine in the European Union: future scenarios

The differences in training and services in geriatric medicine between European Union member countries raise some questions: what is a geriatrician, what is geriatric medicine, what will be the future development of the specialty and how does it interact with other medical specialties? To find answers to these questions, a questionnaire was sent to a selected group of 122 geriatricians. The response rate was 60%. A description has been given of what is a geriatrician and what is geriatric medicine. Based on data from the literature and the answers of the respondents six future scenarios were designed. The six scenarios are: the 'healthy old people', the 'adapted specialties', the 'general practitioner + additional training', the 'co-ordinator geriatrician', the 'community geriatrician' and the 'hospital geriatrician'. The answers of the respondents gave doubts whether general practitioners are able to provide the full range of services for geriatric patients in the community. A small majority of the respondents opted for a division of the specialty into community geriatric medicine and hospital geriatric medicine. Such a division offers good opportunities to raise the quality of medical services and to reduce age-related treatment limitation. It is expected that some aspects of geriatric medicine will be included in the training of other specialties and some GPs will obtain additional training. The collected data can not be considered as a representation of the ideas of the European Union geriatricians. However, they may contribute to the discussion on the national and European level about the future of the specialty.