Q: What interests you about the field of geriatrics?

A: The challenging complexity of properly caring for geriatric patients is invigorating. Not only is it medically challenging, it is also an opportunity to care for an intriguing and unfortunately, sometimes under-appreciated part of our society. I absolutely love the opportunity to hear the wisdom and stories shared about the richness of their full life. Geriatrics is also a field where compassionate and patient listening is needed in taking their complex and long history. There is a great need for physicians to be mindful of these patients in light of their unique medical, cognitive, and psychosocial concerns in order to practice truly caring medicine.

Q: Can you share a short story about something interesting that happened to you during your work with geriatric patients?

A: This past summer, I had the honor to do research in health literacy among the geriatric population. The protocol was at times quite long, up to 3 hours, and due to limited funding, the financial compensation for participants was miniscule relative to this time commitment. It was very touching to see the willingness of the older adults give up a very large portion of their day to give back to the health community. The generosity of these wonderful people made the recruitment process a breeze! As a part of my project, the participants watched a patient education video on exercise tailored to their age group. I was delighted to find that most of the participants thoroughly enjoyed the video and appreciated the information. One of the participants that watched the video alone in the room was a gentleman who had to walk carefully hunched over his cane. When I entered the room on completion of the education video, it was quite a sight to see him sit up straight and pretended to "pump" some iron, an imaginary barbell over his head, from inspiration of the video. Another lady who also watched the video, when traveling from one part of the hospital to the other, started swinging her arms as if power-walking, challenging me to a race. The humor and wonderful personalities of my subjects made my research a lot of fun!

Q: What do you see as the most important issue facing caregivers (either professional or family members) for older persons today?

A: The most important issue facing caregivers is coordinating compassionate care in an increasingly complex medical environment. Polypharmacy poses to be a challenge to both prescribing physicians in being aware of all the drugs taken and prescribed by other physicians as well as actual patient compliance in order to avoid negative drug-drug interactions. Caregivers and patients also have an increasing challenge in managing the timing of administration, refilling, as well as understanding the indications for each drug. The beneficial advances in medicine can result in greater complexity and confusion for the caregiver. Furthermore, as medicine and technology advance, providers will need to fight to maintain humane care, addressing ethical questions as they arise. Therefore, providers have the added challenge in fostering effective communication with the caregiver and patient to combat such barriers of medical care.

Q: How do you hope that your research will benefit the field of geriatrics?

A: I hope my research in geriatric health literacy, in particular in the area of spoken communication, would spark further research and interest in this area in order to ultimately improve patient-provider communication. Older adults' capacity to understand spoken health information may be affected by their health literacy. Age-related changes in speech perception pose older adults with additional challenge when attempting to comprehend providers. It is my hope one day physicians and other health care providers would be specifically educated on the best way to communicate health information to geriatric patients to foster the best understanding, personal empowerment, and ultimately, optimal health.