Don’t Gamble with Your Geriatric Patients! Strategies to Stack the Deck in Their Favor

CME Credit: 0.75
Contact Hours: 0.75

ASCRS has invested in improving the care of Geriatric Surgical Patients. General Sessions, publications including the Clinical Practice Guideline for the Perioperative Evaluation and Management of Frailty Among Older Adults Undergoing Colorectal Surgery, and the development of the Geriatric Special Interest Group (SIG) have built the foundation of Geriatric Surgery Care for ASCRS members. The Geriatric SIG has developed a practical multiple-year curriculum for ASCRS members to integrate Geriatric Surgery Care into their unique practice.

This is the first symposium in the curriculum aiming at helping colorectal surgeons integrate geriatric surgery principles into their busy clinical practices. The symposium will first focus on the issue of 'frailty fatigue' that occurs when surgeons are inundated with information about the importance of frailty screening, but not provided with realistic, practical solutions for their own practices. Attendees will then learn efficient strategies to integrate the optimization of nutrition and physical status into surgical practices with varied structures and resources. Adverse events, especially in older adults, are costly and attendees will next learn how to use the cost savings of improved outcomes to make a case to administrators to invest in a multidisciplinary geriatric program. Finally, attendees will be introduced to the concept of left-digit bias and how ageism could affect surgical decision-making.

This symposium provides a framework to build a unique, cost-effective, and patient-centered geriatric surgery program. Surgeons will be able to stack the deck in their patients' favor.