HASwill we have a doctor for our old age? The question is legitimate given the increase in the number of elderly people. The constant growth in life expectancy in France, which reaches, in 2022, 79.3 years for men and 85.2 years for women, is a strong trend that is expected to continue until 2060, with projections reaching 86 years for men and 91.1 years for women, according to INSEE projections dating from 2010.
This increase in life expectancy is accompanied by considerable demographic growth in the elderly population. Indeed, baby boomers born between 1945 and 1970 will reach 85 years old between 2030 and 2055. These figures reveal a major challenge: the increase in the number of diseases and disorders of aging, and therefore a growing demand for geriatric care and geriatric medicine beds.
Will medical resources keep pace with these growing needs? If reflection is not carried out quickly, the answer will definitely be no. It is now that everything is at stake to train the doctors of tomorrow.
In public establishments, the share of vacant hospital practitioner positions in geriatrics was 33.8% in 2021, or just under 800 jobs, according to the National Center for the Management of Hospital Practitioners and Management Personnel of the Hospital Public Service. Hundreds of doctors with foreign qualifications, particularly from Eastern Europe or the Maghreb, partly compensate for the lack of doctors trained by our universities. At the same time, a third of the 11,000 accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people do not have a coordinating doctor and half lack doctors, while the “medicalization of these establishments” is essential, i.e. more than 3,000 vacant jobs.
However, in the 2023-2024 national ranking exam (the internship competition), only 196 places are available for the geriatrics specialty out of 9,484 places, according to a count carried out by the site The Student based on the decree of July 31, and we have not noted any progression since 2017 since we had 200 places that year. Geriatrics therefore does not benefit from the increase in the number of open positions (460 for the year 2023). This is worrying and very insufficient to prepare for the future. Worse, some of these positions remain unfilled.
2030 is tomorrow!
We therefore need to train more, much more! Train more geriatricians but also train specialists in general medicine in the care of older people. This involves several levers.
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