Physicians play a key role in our healthcare journey through each stage of life.
Your children probably visited a pediatrician when they were young. Their specialized training in care for growing children helped them keep kids healthy. In the same way, we need a physician to care for us as we age. A person in their 70s or 80s will have different medical concerns than they did in their 30s or 40s.
Compared to younger patients, seniors have significantly different healthcare needs. Acute and chronic illnesses often coincide with the physical, social, and behavioral effects of aging.
The role of physicians in senior care
Physicians have a variety of responsibilities when caring for seniors. They review medical history and ensure each resident receives regular examinations and orders for medications. With all these parameters, physicians are tasked with looking at the whole picture of the resident to determine what the course of action will be with their treatment plans.
“The goal of excellent medical care is always to help the patient achieve ‘successful aging’ – which includes accomplishing goals that are important to them, and having the best quality of life that they can,” said Elderwood Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ranjit Singh, MB BChir MBA. “Sometimes we make the mistake of having low expectations for our patients - because they are ‘old and frail.’ Sometimes patients and their families make the same mistake. We must not fall into this trap.”
Collaborating with the residents and establishing their goals is also important for implementing a care plan. “Our patients have hopes and dreams - they might be different than when they were younger, but they are just as important. A challenge we face is that we impose our own assumptions on others instead of exploring their goals and helping to meet them. One thing I like to do is to stop and look at the family photos on the wall in the patient’s room. Seeing them reminds me that the person in front of me is, first and foremost, a husband or wife, a parent, a grandparent, or a friend. Involving their loved ones can also help us to understand our patients better so we can provide them the best care possible.”
The importance of physicians in senior care
The number of physicians entering the field of geriatrics is decreasing. Therefore, internists, family physicians, and residents in training provide most of their care. Advanced age changes both how illness presents and how it responds to treatment. Seniors are often afflicted by frailty, a condition characterized by muscle loss, balance issues, and altered mental functioning.
“It is so important for us all to work as a team - our patients are complex and require all our joint expertise to help them reach their goals. None of us has the whole picture or the whole solution. But if we communicate and collaborate closely, we can make a difference,” said Dr. Singh.
Listening is key to caring for seniors at Elderwood
Elderwood is known to provide excellent care for the aging population, which is led by Dr. Singh and other physicians. Listening to patients is a valuable skill that Dr. Singh believes is imperative for the care of residents. “Listening is the most important skill,” he said. “First, we must listen to our residents and their families. We must understand their goals and needs, as well as their concerns and questions. As leaders, we must also listen to our staff. Our staff know far more about our residents than we do, and we must respect their knowledge and learn from them. Also, we need to understand the tremendous pressure that our front-line staff are under and do our best to support them.”
Dr. Singh has been with Elderwood for the last eight years and has known he's wanted to be a physician for as long as he can remember. “As a child, my family doctor seemed like part of the family. I knew that was what I wanted to be as well,” said Dr. Singh.
Dr. Ranjit Singh is the Chief Medical Officer at Elderwood, and Medical Director at Elderwood at Grand Island. In addition, he serves as an associate professor, and vice chair for research in the department of Family Medicine at the State University of New York at Buffalo. His research and teaching are focused on protecting older adults from medication harm. As a leader of "Team Alice" at the University at Buffalo, he works with an interdisciplinary team of researchers, patients, and caregivers, to design and test tools to help patients and their providers to recognize and prevent harm from medications that sometimes do more harm than good.