Every year thousands of Canadians enter medical school and start a journey where they meet, learn from and work with many talented medical professionals including: pediatricians, family physicians, general internists, emergency medicine physicians, surgeons, obstetricians, gynecologists, anesthesiologists, psychiatrists and many others. However, medical students are rarely given the opportunity to engage with geriatricians during their medical education. In fact, many medical trainees may go through their entire medical education without ever being taught about the unique health needs that older people may have.

For many Canadians, their older years can be a fulfilling time when they can enjoy the rewards of a well-earned retirement amongst their family and friends. However, for a significant number it can also be a time when they may be at risk of being harmed financially, physically, emotionally or psychologically by those they trust. About 10 per cent of older Canadians will suffer some form of elder abuse, most often from their spouses, grown children, caregivers, family members or another person they trust. With our rapidly ageing population expected to grow in the coming years and decades, these incidences are unfortunately only going to become more prevalent.

In the home where a high-anxiety family meeting is taking place, an older patient is bedbound and incontinent due to their advanced chronic illness, and the family cannot cope with meeting the care needs of their loved one anymore. Family members are burnt out and ready to explore nursing home options immediately.

When older patients come to Mount Sinai Hospital for their care, they are often impressed to find pharmacists working closely alongside their doctors, nurses and therapists as equally essential members of a patient’s care team. So when the hospital launched its Healthy Ageing and Geriatrics Program in 2010, I was proud to be selected as Sinai Health System’s lead geriatrics pharmacist. In fact, our program remains the only one we know of in Canada where a Board Certified Geriatrics Pharmacist is a key member of the Inpatient Geriatric Medicine Consult Service and Outpatient Geriatric Medicine Clinics. I was further pleased that Rexall Canada recently provided our program the support of a second Geriatrics Pharmacist who helps assist our patients through our Community Outreach Team and other community-based programs as well.

When we think about emergency medicine, we often think about the most extreme cases – explosions, blood, trauma, and life-or-death situations. In reality, that is a very small portion of what we do as Emergency Department (ED) physicians. Our day-to-day roles thankfully aren’t that dramatic, but they are just as important.