Ann Thorac Surg 2002;73:379-380
© 2002 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
Editorial
Our responsibility for improving the care of elderly cardiothoracic surgical patients
Joseph LoCicero, III, MD*a
a Department of Surgery, The Chicago Medical School, Mount Sinai Hospital Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, USA
* Address reprint requests to Dr LoCicero, Department of Surgery, The Chicago Medical School, Mount Sinai Hospital Medical Center, 2750 W 15th St, Chicago, IL 60608-1797, USA
e-mail: lociceroj@finchcms.edu
There comes a time in every surgeon’s life when immortality meets reality. The source of the realization might come from the illness of a particular patient. It might come from that of a grandparent or a parent, an aunt or an uncle, a spouse or a sibling. It might come from the demise of a mentor or a teacher. Or it might even come from a change in the "invincible" surgeon—that morning joint stiffness as we start to operate or that momentary mental lapse we now euphemistically call a "senior moment." It is at that moment that the unique problems of elderly patients hit home.
At some point, we all realize that we will neither stay young nor live forever. Like our patients, eventually we age and join the ranks of the "elder" generation. Every day in the United States those ranks loom larger. The population boom of older people is in full swing and will become explosive after 2011 as the "baby boom" generation hits retirement age. Conservative assumptions predict that the 65 years-and-over population in this country will grow from 35 million in 2000 to 78 million in 2050 (from 13% to 20% of the population), and the 85 years-and-over population will grow from 4 million to 18.2 million [1]. Moreover, if life expectancy continues to increase at the same rate seen in the 1990s, then the projected . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Copyright © 2002 by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons.
