Geriatric medicine in Norway

Norway

The Society was founded in November 1973. However, there was a previous initiative in 1948, with a demand to the National Health Institute to improve the focus on health in older people. A total of 33 physicians and psychiatrists attended the first meeting. After a two-year process, in 1974, geriatric medicine received status as a subspecialty within internal medicine. However, it took 30 years before the first hospital department was established in 1978, and a further 4 years until Geriatric Medicine had its first professorship, in 1982.

During the late seventies, geriatric medicine became integral part of postgraduate education. There are professors of geriatric medicine in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Tromso.

In Norway, the speciality of Geriatric Medicine is a subspecialty or “branch” of internal medicine. It implies that one must become specialist in internal medicine before one can become a specialist in geriatric medicine. It also implies that the focus of the speciality is responsibility for older people admitted to hospital with an acute disease in addition to several chronic diseases. Such patients need immediate diagnoses and treatment, in order to prevent further functional deterioration. However, older persons in nursing homes and frail persons living at in their own home are also an important part of a geriatrician’s interest.

The way of organising geriatric medicine activities is quite different in the different hospitals. The collaboration with nursing homes also varies between the different hospitals.

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http://www.eugms.org/our-members/national-societies/norway.html