Refashioning the uneasy relationship between older people and geriatric medicine

A notable feature of most medical specialties is close joint working between patient advocacy groups and specialist societies in furthering improvements in policy and services. While growing old is not a disease, nor too is being a child, and the engagement of advocacy and international bodies such as UNICEF with paediatricians is well established and recognised. Yet almost eight decades after the founding of geriatric medicine, it is clear that this type of relationship does not hold for the advocacy bodies representing those we serve, as well as the wider constituency of older people. Geriatricians are an extraordinary resourceful and imaginative group, and a more effective promotion of our role as guardians of the longevity dividend is vital to a more positive and mutually beneficial relationship with older people and society. This will require a redirection of our focus to a more critical stance on our origins as a discipline, our relationship with ageing across the lifespan and with older people and a fuller engagement with the broader concepts of gerontology in training and research to develop a refreshed articulacy for, the opportunities arising from gerontologically attuned healthcare.