Travel Journal: Vasi Naganathan
Having enjoyed our face-to-face scientific meeting in Brisbane I decided to go for a bit of a wander and the following week I attended the British Geriatrics Society Spring Meeting in Edinburgh. I have heard a lot about the BGS meeting and am aware of many of our members having a connection with Geriatric Medicine in Britain. The meeting was fantastic with a similar vibe to our meeting – geriatricians are nice wherever they are! There were a smaller number of people than our meeting in Brisbane, possible because they run a live hybrid meeting and the BGS meeting occurs twice a year.
From an ANZSGM point of view, attending the meeting gave us lots to think about. The BGS is very active in trying to influence health policy and advocate for better health care for older people. For example, their leadership team attend the national conferences of the major political parties! We plan to exchange ideas with them about their approach to advocacy. Community services seem well developed there but BGS policy people told me their next big challenge is to advocate for more hospital based Geriatric Medicine rehabilitation services. The BGS has a truly multidisciplinary membership, unlike us (the pros and cons of this are something for us to keep thinking about). Workforce challenges were discussed as well as alternative training pathways for Geriatricians (Certificate of Eligibility for Specialist Registration) and widening the scope of practice of all health professionals (advanced care professional) as a way of meeting this challenge. The loss of doctors and nurses to Australia and New Zealand was also mentioned often and I felt the urge to stand up and offer my sincere apologies for this!
There were clinically orientated sessions particular around perioperative medicine, cardiovascular disease and dementia. As many of you know there are no fundamental differences in how patients are assessed and managed. In addition, it was interesting to hear about local innovative models of care especially about models of care to look after people at home instead of in hospital.
I enjoyed hearing about the BGS views on undergraduate curriculum in Geriatric Medicine and about the 18 week clerkship called “Complex Medicine in Older people” at Bristol Medical School. With regards to advanced training, they have updated their curriculum recently and there are lots of similarities with our own updated curriculum. At the ground level, there seemed to be some un-happiness with the practicalities of concurrently training in general internal medicine. Several trainees and consultants talked about how trainees being pulled away to do general medical registrar duties was getting in the way of geriatric medicine training.
Finally, you will all be pleased to know that I did ANZSGM proud by attempting Scottish dancing at the BGS dinner (not in a kilt, utterly hopeless but fortunately no photographic or video evidence).
I few weeks ago I attended the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics Asia/Oceania Regional Congress in Yokohama, Japan. Like the IAGG world congress it is held every four years and includes many concurrent sessions on a variety of topics. IAGG meetings are interesting if you like hearing about more than just clinical Geriatric Medicine. There are sessions on everything from basic science of ageing to age discrimination. I heard about Integrated Dementia Care Centres (IDCC) and Support Centres for People with Dementia and their families (SPDF) in Taiwan. Government funded and as much services as possible under the “one roof”. An impressive array of services and support are provided for people after the diagnosis of Dementia. The multidisciplinary team of the IDCC I heard about even had a lawyer to help people with legal matters that may arise.
It was interesting to hear about the challenges Japan faces as a ‘super-aged’ society with 29 per cent of the population aged 65 and over. There were several sessions about the potential value of technology, AI and robots to help in the care of older people. There were also discussions on the fundamental question of whether there need to be changes to current policies about foreign Care workers in Japan and the problem of high worker turnover and staff shortages in long term care facilities (just like us).
I learnt a bit about Geriatric Medicine Services in Malaysia, China, Philippines, Korea and Japan and was inspired by a conversations with a geriatrician of Nepalese background now based in China who has lived and trained in Nanjing (MBBS), Beijing (Geriatrics MD and PhD), Toulouse in France (Fellow in Geriatrics) and John Hopkins (Postdoc). Finally, for those of you who need inspiration to exercise more, an article about the Japan over-80’s football league.
