Elementary, my dear geriatrician!
Making geriatrics better known to the public
A recent specialty, geriatrics, needs to be better known and understood by both the public and untrained caregivers. Preconceived ideas, both about the discipline and about aging itself, die hard… Too many patients have little or no access to the care they need.
With this in mind, the Association des Jeunes Gériatres (AJG) (Association of Young Geriatricians), in collaboration with The Ink Link, wrote about geriatrics to inform caregivers, the elderly, and carers. The AJG wanted to explain in this book what geriatric teams actually do. When and why should you contact them? What can they see and do, thanks to the comprehensive gerontological approach? What care do they provide?
What do these comics have to say, and to whom?
The eight situations described in this book are not an exhaustive account of the specialty, given the multi-professional nature of the teams and their vast field of expertise. Inspired by the experiences of geriatricians and their colleagues, the story is not a documentary: the AJG has chosen to let the artists express themselves freely. With humor, poetry, and solemnity, they have illustrated the key moments when a geriatric team can be of help to an elderly person and those around them.
Aimed primarily at healthcare professionals not trained in geriatrics, this comic book can also be read by anyone, whatever their age. The AJG hopes that by reading it, everyone will learn to exclaim, whenever necessary: “Elementary, my dear geriatrician!”, a sign that it will have succeeded in transmitting some habits and the desire to seek out a geriatric team.
And — who knows? — if some caregivers wanted to go into this specialty, they'd be more than welcome. As the population ages, more and more resources will be needed: these pages are also a plea for better access to care.
A collaborative effort between AJG and The Ink Link, this comic book is licensed under a creative common (cc) license. It is intended for distribution to all professionals, patients, and caregivers concerned by issues related to aging. Since June 9, 2023, the book is available free of charge, subject to shipping costs, on the AJG website.
