In most medical specialties, subspecialties in geriatrics are being developed. Rheumatology should be no exception. Answers to important questions on the epidemiology of aging, the aging process itself, specific rheumatic diseases in the elderly, and the delivery of health care to older individuals with rheumatic diseases are waiting to be discovered. The medical research involved and the effect it will have on rheumatologic practice is at once interesting and compelling, and eventually will greatly change the way rheumatologists care for patients. It is important for the members of our profession to support these new efforts, which will impact on so many people and will inevitably change our way of doing things in the future. I am writing this, however, not just to endorse the extension of our profession's interest in classic rheumatology to an interest in rheumatologic care of patients who are in later life, but also to point out important new goals for practicing rheumatologists in the care of the elderly-at the present time, without awaiting the evolution of the subspecialty.
Several years ago I resolved to become a geriatrician, seeking out the elderly and their medical problems not just in the clinic and acute care hospital, but wherever they might be, including the home and From the Arizona Center on Aging, University of Arizona