A series of updates

First things first, I passed my classes. Some by the skin of my teeth, others by the whole tooth.

Second, I've survived H1N1. Hopefully I'm now immune and won't get sick again this fallwith it when it morphs into the superflu everyone keeps warning me about.

Third, there are only 3 bugs that I actively kill; fruit flies, mosquitoes and earwigs.

Fourth, I spent last week in Edmonton doing a week of geriatrics. Edmonton is a fabulous city. I was shocked. It's well planned, very green, has a great night life and terrific restaurants and has an amazing amount of money in the health care system. We were given tours of the various facilities and were surprised by the quality and amount of resources available. The docs and staff were all incredibly passionate about the care of the elderly. It was inspiring, though to be honest, I don't see a future for myself in geriatrics.

In Alberta, it seems that the Care of the Elderly diploma (a 6 month fellowship following a Family Med degree) is highly valued. These docs are considered geriatricians and work with the elderly full time. I don't think that the same education in Ontario is as well respected, but I don't really know.

Given that we have a shortage of geriatricians in Ontario, it seems that the short cut in training would be popular but it doesn't seem to be. Part of the concern is that the first baby boomer turns 65 in 2011. They won't be needed the service of a geriatrician for several years following that but the cohort before them will need the specialized attention. Despite the supposed raucous that the boomers are able to raise, no one seems to be championing the need for geriatricians.

Few med students choose to enter geriatrics. As far as I can tell, it's not necessarily because they don't like the idea of working with the old folks, it's that something else is just much more interesting. It's hard to see what the point is in specializing in the care of the elderly when you're planning on doing your residency in internal medicine since the majority of your patients are geriatric. Also, it's hard to see geriatrics as anything but a dead end. Geriatricians across Canada are trying to figure out how to woo medical students to join their ranks.

I mentioned that I don't see myself going into geriatrics. This is for a couple of reasons. For starters, I don't really see myself dealing with just one population forever. It's why pediatrics and obstetrics are not that appealing to me. While it's true that geriatrics is not a dead end, you still spend a short amount of time with your patients, either doing their assessment and sending them back to their primary care provider or because their life expectancy at that point is nearing its due date.

Fifth, my cat is really sick again. We've taken to calling him the million dollar cat. This vet bill ran $800 with the possibility of surgery and more imaging still to come.

Ironically, he is a geriatric cat.