Geriatric medicine education in Europe and the United States

Due to the demographic shift and high prevalence of multimorbidity and frailty in older patients, the need for physicians and other healthcare professionals trained in geriatric medicine has increased, and the time has come for geriatric training to be provided to all healthcare professionals. This chapter presents an overview of current geriatric medicine education in Europe and the US. Since before the turn of the twenty-first century, advocates in the United States of America (US) have called for greater preparation of the healthcare workforce to care for older adults with changes to education and practice. While gains have been made over the past several decades to improve funding and spur innovation in geriatric education in health professions education, cultural attitudes towards ageing, funding and reimbursement, and a paucity of geriatrics faculty available to teach trainees continue to leave room for improvement in geriatrics education in the US.