[Clinical geriatrics, quo vadis? Careful considerations of the future of a new specialty]

It is something of a rope-dancer's trick to try to indicate what future is to expect for a young and controversial specialism like clinical geriatrics. Even so, it is a challenge to those who are directly involved. In the expectations we have of geriatrics we deal not only with the geriatric department of a general hospital (GAAZ), the clinical geriatrician's workshop, as such, but also with its place and functioning in the total chain of geriatric care. The most desirable distribution of clinical geriatricians and their departments is discussed; this is followed by a cautious quantitative prognosis. A different effort has been made to indicate how the policy of recognition of geriatricians and the existence of clinical geriatrics are closely interconnected. Within their curriculum the Universities are expected to see it as an educative and stimulating task for them to promote geriatrics in general and clinical geriatrics particularly.