In this in-depth article by Tanika White of the Baltimore Sun, we get a personalized look at the challenges facing long-term care and the shortage of geriatricians.

After four years of medical school and three years of internal medicine training, Jessica Colburn could have chosen just about any field of medicine to practice. Gastroenterology would have been lucrative, brain surgery exciting. At one point, pediatrics piqued her interest.

But Colburn, 31, picked one of the least-popular areas of medicine to make her mark: geriatrics.

“I’ve always loved old people,” said Colburn, chief resident at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Internal Medicine Residency program. “And I have been interested in the care of underserved people. I think it’s a need and a demand in medicine.”

As baby boomers age, the demand for geriatricians - internal- or family-medicine doctors trained in the needs of elderly patients - will only grow.

Click here to read the entire article.