Jane Potter, M.D., recently was named president of the American Geriatrics Society (AGS), the nation’s top association of health specialists and researchers on the elderly.
Her appointment — which took effect May 4 — is “the culmination of a 30-year career that began when I fell in love with old folks as a medical student in rural Nebraska.”
Dr. Potter is chief of the Section of Geriatrics and Gerontology at UNMC and holds the Neumann M. and Mildred E. Harris Geriatric Professorship in the department of internal medicine. In addition, Dr. Potter is medical director of the university’s geriatric assessment program and an associate clinical professor in the department of medicine at Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha.
The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) is a nationwide, not-for-profit association of geriatrics health care professionals and research scientists dedicated to improving the health, independence and quality of life of all older people.
The AGS has just under 7,000 members who promote high quality, comprehensive and accessible care for America’s older population, including those who are chronically ill and disabled. The organization provides leadership to health care professionals, policy makers and the public by developing, implementing and advocating programs in patient care, research, professional and public education, and public policy.
“There is no area of medicine where clinical science is more important today than in geriatrics,” Dr. Potter said. “Not only are we experiencing significantly longer life spans, but the nature of illness is changing.
“Americans do not die from acute diseases as they often did in the past. Now chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease are the major cause of illness, disability and death in this country. On average, by age 75, older adults have between two to three chronic medical conditions and some have 10 or 12.”
The AGS and its members are in no small part responsible for an extraordinary growth of geriatric science fueled by a rapidly aging American population and the tidal wave of 77 million Baby Boomers rapidly approaching their senior years.
In 1900, there were 3.1 million Americans age 65 and older – today there are almost 40 million. Because of the ‘Baby Boom’ generation, by 2030, it is projected that one out of every five Americans will be over age 65. Today, people age 85 and older are the fastest growing element of the population. Essentially all health professionals provide some geriatric care. Nationally, approximately 40 percent of surgical patients are over 65 years of age, necessitating training in geriatrics for anesthesia and surgical specialists.
High on Dr. Potter’s list of the society’s priorities for the coming years is addressing a growing, nationwide shortage of geriatrics health care providers.
Another major priority of her leadership will be to secure funding for an Institute of Medicine (IOM) study to reevaluate the American health care system and recommend changes needed to better accommodate the “Aging Boom.” Dr. Potter said that the IOM’s sobering report in 2000 on health disparities in America rewrote the script on the nation’s health care system’s response to health care inequities. She hopes an IOM report on health care for the aging will have a similar impact.
“AGS has focused on three core priorities – expanding and disseminating geriatrics knowledge; increasing the number of health care professions using principles of geriatric care; and encouraging health professionals to enter careers in geriatric practice, administration, teaching and research,” Dr. Potter said.
“My term will focus on elevating the priority of two additional, vital needs – influencing public policy and raising public awareness of the need for high quality health care for older adults.”
Dr. Potter said there are still too many people in Congress who “just don’t get it.” Last year Congress cancelled Title VII funding set aside for training health professionals in geriatrics. In Nebraska, these funds supported more than 100 health providers, who received mini-fellowships in geriatrics. The funding, Dr. Potter said, was only $31.5 million nationally – a “drop in the bucket relative to total health care costs for the Medicare population” – yet it was cancelled.
As for better quality care for the aged, Dr. Potter also plans to fight the current misleading public images of aging today in America.
“We need to do a much better job of getting the word out and making our case,” Dr. Potter said. “We know so much more in 2006 than we did in the 1970s. We know the systems and approaches to health care that would insure high quality patient centered care. What is needed is for the public to demand the services and the trained professionals to make that care available to all older Americans.
“In the media, the elderly are silver-haired and in great shape, they never have infirmities. Plus there is this giant anti-aging industry marketing special creams, complex vitamins and hormones. We need more realistic portrayals. By the time a person is 75 years old, most have two or three chronic conditions. People’s lives get smaller as they age, but most are remarkably happy in those lives. What we need is more realistic support of the lives people are actually living.”
Dr. Potter received a bachelor’s of science degree in chemistry from Creighton University in 1973 and her medical degree from Creighton University’s School of Medicine in 1977. She did her internship and residency in internal medicine at George Washington University Hospital from 1977 to 1980 and a fellowship at the Gerontology Research Center at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, Md., from 1980-1982.
A member of the AGS since 1978, Dr. Potter is director of the Geriatric Fellowship Program at UNMC. Since taking over as chief of UNMC’s Geriatrics and Gerontology Section, she has expanded the section, which originally included one physician, to seven. In each year at the university’s medical school, students learn from geriatrics faculty, as do students in a wide array of the university’s health professional programs.
Dr. Potter also is a deputy director of the AGS /John A. Hartford Foundation Geriatrics-for-Specialists Initiative. Dr. Potter served as AGS board secretary in 2004, and has been a member or chairwoman of many other AGS committees, including the public policy, clinical practice, nominations, finance, and bylaws committees.
Dr. Potter also has contributed to numerous AGS publications. She was a question editor for the early editions of the Geriatrics Review Syllabus and an associate editor for the fourth edition. She has been an editor of all eight editions of Geriatrics At Your Fingertips and has co-edited the Geriatric Syllabus for Specialists. She also is a reviewer for the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
The recipient of numerous grants and teaching awards – including UNMC’s Outstanding Teacher Award — Dr. Potter has authored more than 130 articles for scholarly journals, book chapters and abstracts. In 2001, she was named project director of a $2 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation to UNMC to increase the amount of training in geriatrics for physicians in Nebraska, beginning with medical students, continuing with residents and reaching out to practicing physicians.