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COMMENTARY |
1 Department of Geriatric Medicine, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, Australia.
2 School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Address correspondence to Gideon A. Caplan, FRACP, Geriatric Medicine, Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, NSW 2031, Australia. E-mail: g.caplan{at}unsw.edu.au
Professor John Morley, who has been at the forefront of geriatrics for the last two decades, and who has triumphantly led the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences to a rejuvenation, provides a tour d'horizon of geriatric medicine from the start of recorded history to the present day (1). From narrow beginnings, the breadth of achievement is breathtaking. Unfortunately, more knowledge simply makes us aware of the greater challenges that confront us.
Although there has been success in longevity extension without extension of morbidity (2), the challenges that remain seem at times overwhelming. How do we deliver the services for our current clients, meet the conditions imposed on us by political and administrative masters within the limitations that we face, and produce the workforce that tomorrow demands?
At times, one may wonder pessimistically what priority society lends to our work. Despite the aging of the baby boomers, the youth focus of society is becoming more accentuated (3). Can we address the needs of an aging population while society is attempting to accelerate so fast in the other direction?
So, how do we turn geriatric medicine from a still largely palliative specialty into a therapeutic powerhouse. We look forward to the time that geriatric medicine can seriously compress morbidity, empty the nursing homes, and turn ours into a society of satisfied centenarians. These challenges are vast, but not impossible, just as the problems facing those who entered geriatric medicine decades ago must have seemed daunting, at times.
The successes of John Morley and his generation may look easy, but only in retrospect, as all achievement does. He has helped to lay the foundation upon which he continues to build. We are certain that his retirement from editorship of this Journal is only to allow more time for other challenges.
We have been given a glimpse of the crest of the hill with the decrease in vascular disease, but the war on neurodegenerative diseases remains. Let us salute John Morley, architect and builder, and remind ourselves that it is not up to any one of us to finish the job, but neither may we refrain from working on it.
References
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