Geriatric Medicine in the land of mountains and fjords

Marit Apeland Alfsvåg is leader of the Geriatric Department at Stavanger University Hospital and Prof Annette Hylen Ranhoff is Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Bergen.

Norway has a long coast, fjords and huge mountain areas. The population is small with only 5 million people, and 4 million live in cities.

Norway has become part of the wave of ageing. The percentage of people who are 65 years or older is about 14% and is estimated to reach 23% in 2030. The care of the older people has been declared to be a national priority.

My Week in Meetings

by Timo Strandberg

These winter weeks are usually very busy for Finnish geriatricians and often quite cold weather (possibly down to minus 30 degrees Celsius) does hinder us. Actually, this winter we have enjoyed quite nice weather with some snow and reasonable temperatures. In January-February we have some regional doctor’s meetings and the 2-day “Geriatricians’ Days” are traditionally during  the last week of January. The Board of Finnish Geriatricians (SG) organizes these days, and the board members rotate every 3 years from one University city (with medical faculty, 5 in Finland)  to another. In 2014, geriatricians from the Turku region had their third time and they had made the congress especially glamorous.