Contributor: Andrey Izyumov
Origin/Afiliation: geriatrician, internist (specialist in internal medicine) in the Russian Gerontology clinical and research center
Hello. My name is Andrey Izyumov. I am 27 years old. I am a geriatrician, internist (specialist in internal medicine). I am working in the Russian Gerontology clinical and research center.
Today I would like to tell you why I chose to be a geriatrician, why I continue to follow this pathway, and why I suggest you be a geriatrician.
Why did I choose geriatrics?
I used to work as an internal medicine doctor in an emergency hospital. Most of the patients were elderly and senile. We treated everyone according to current guidelines. We used only modern algorithms and standards of medical care. However, something was missing. Despite the appropriate drug therapy, I saw the achievement of the target levels of blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar, and cholesterol; an elderly, "fragile" patient needed something else. It was apparent that the approach, the management of such patients, should be completely different. I began to take an interest in this issue, read the literature. And a result, I became a geriatrician.
Why do I continue to follow this pathway?
The most exciting thing in my work is talking with really old patients.Communication with really elderly patients, centenarians is a kind of opportunity to touch another era. It is fascinating to listen to veterans of wars and challenging times, hear a story about this or that event on behalf of contemporaries, and from absolutely different positions (peasants, workers, former politicians, military men). A couple of years ago, a patient over 100 years old told that she found her great-great-grandmother alive, who saw Napoleon's troops leaving Moscow at the age of 5. It's just amazing.
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