Geriatrics faculty in the United States: who are they and what are they doing?

Despite increases in geriatrics training at all levels of medical education, there is a nationwide shortage of geriatrics faculty. This shortage may be due in part to demands for clinical responsibilities that preclude adequate time for teaching and research. To learn about the professional activities of geriatrics faculty, we conducted a national survey of a 50% sample of all medical schools and their affiliated residency programs that focused on physician and non-physician geriatrics faculty in internal medicine, family practice, psychiatry, neurology, and physical medicine and rehabilitation. Although we found minor differences across specialties, in general, approximately one-third of physician faculty time is spent in teaching, the majority of which is clinical teaching. Less than 15% of physician faculty time is spent in research, and fewer than 10% of physician geriatrics faculty devote over half of their time to research. The percentage of time that non-physician faculty (other than "Research Only" faculty) spend in research is only slightly higher. These findings suggest that efforts to increase geriatrics education at all levels and promote research advances will be limited unless geriatricians devote substantially more of their time to these responsibilities.