consultant colleagues, making home visits, having a day hospital, and having good coordination with primary care and local authority services to produce a successful planned discharge. He thought that approximately half to two‐thirds of all geriatric beds should be in the main hospital where the main diagnostic and treatment facilities were based, and the remainder should be in smaller units near the patients’ home.
Professor Sir William Ferguson Anderson, OBE, FRCP (Glasgow, Edinburgh and London) (1914–2001), was a strong advocate on behalf of older people. In 1965, he was appointed David Cargill Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Glasgow. He firmly believed in the speciality as an academic discipline and the need to teach medical students about old age. He took geriatric medicine into the community, notably in Rutherglen, where he established health centres for the elderly. He wrote extensively, and his textbook Practical Management of the Elderly went into five editions. He lectured in many countries, spreading the message of the achievements of British geriatric medicine, was a visiting professor in many countries, a major advisor to several medical charities for the elderly, and a superb charismatic ambassador for the specialty.
Third wave of geriatricians
During the latter two decades of the last century, other outstanding geriatricians played key roles in revitalizing the speciality of geriatrics in the UK to lay a solid foundation for further developing the speciality and demonstrating its uniqueness and separation from general medicine. These included Professor Bernard Isaacs, CBE (1924–1995), Professor John Pathy OBE (1923–2009), Professor John Brocklehurst, CBE (1924–2013), and Professor Sir John Grimley Evans (1936–2018). All of these latter physicians were leading lights in enriching the speciality of geriatric medicine.
Geriatrics in the United States
The development of modern geriatrics is strongly based on the Veterans Administration and private foundations, such as the Josiah Macy Jr Foundation, the John A. Hartford Foundation, and the Donald W. Reynold Foundation. The Veterans Administration developed the Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center in 1976. These institutions have been the leaders in developing geriatric faculty, science, and education at major universities in the US. They also played a leadership role in developing palliative care and the teaching nursing home concept. In 1940, the Unit of Aging was started by the National Institutes of Health. In 1958, under the leadership of Nathan Shock and Reuben Andres, this became the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. The National Institute on Aging was established in 1974. Robert Butler was its first director.
There are three major geriatrics and gerontological societies in the US. Each sponsors a yearly meeting and has its own journal. The Club for Research in Aging was founded in 1939, and it evolved into the Gerontological Society of America in 1945. The Journal of Gerontology was first published the following year. The Joseph T. Freeman Award was first given in 1980 to Robert Butler, and its awardees read like a modern Who’s Who in American Geriatrics (Table 1).
Table 1 The Joseph T. Freeman Award of the Medical Sciences Section of The Gerontological Society of America.
| Year | Recipient |
|---|---|
| 1980 | Robert N. Butler |
| 1981 | Isadore Rossman |
| 1982 | Manuel Rodstein |
| 1983 | R. Knight Steel |
| 1984 | Joseph T. Freeman |
| 1985 | T. Franklin Williams |
| 1986 | Charles M. Gaitz |
| 1987 | John W. Rowe |
| 1988 | Eric A. Pfeiffer |
| 1989 | Saul Kamen |
| 1990 | John C. Beck |
| 1991 | Evan Calkins |
| 1992 | Christine K. Cassel |
| 1993 | Reubin Andres |
| 1994 | Steven R. Gambert |
| 1995 | Richard W. Besdine |
| 1996 | Lissy jarvik |
| 1997 | David H. Solomon |
| 1998 | Harvey Jay Cohen |
| 1999 | William Hazzard |
| 2000 | Mary Tinetti |
| 2001 | Robert J. Luchi |
| 2002 | Larry Z. Rubenstein |
| 2003 | Itamar Abrass |
| 2004 | John E. Morley |
| 2005 | Wilbert Aronow |
| 2006 | Molly Carnes |
| 2007 | Andrew Goldberg |
| 2008 | David Reuben |
| 2009 | Stephanie Studenski |
| 2010 | Lewis Lipsitz |
| 2011 | Luigi Ferrucci |
| 2012 | Thomas M. Gill |
| 2013 | Richard M. Ullman |
The American Geriatrics Society was formed in 1942 by Malford W. Thewlis. The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society was launched in 1953.
The American Medical Directors Association was founded in 1978, with William Dodd being its first president. Its journal is called the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association (JAMDA), which in later years under the leadership of Professor John Morley became a high‐ranking geriatric medicine journal.
Leslie Libow created the first fellowship in geriatric medicine at City Hospital Center, New York (a Mount Sinai School of Medicine affiliate) in 1966. The following year he created the first teaching nursing home in the US. In 1982, the first Department of Geriatrics was formed at Mount Sinai Medical School. Dr Robert Butler was its first chairperson.
The first certifying examination in geriatrics was given in 1988. At the same time, two‐year geriatric fellowship programs were certified. In 1995,