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On behalf of the Editors, it is an honor and privilege to provide this preface to Hazzard’s Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, Seventh Edition. This textbook has become a mainstay of the rapidly developing field of geriatric medicine. Building on the textbook’s already rich history since it was first published in 1985, the seventh edition emerges renewed and vibrant. This is the second edition of this textbook to carry the name of its founding editor Bill Hazzard in its title. What we and our publisher McGraw-Hill have simply done is to formalize the reality of the imprint that Bill Hazzard has made, as the textbook has been known informally as Hazzard’s Textbook for many years. We are pleased that Bill has contributed a foreword to the seventh edition, providing his view of the critical importance of fellowship training in geriatrics to the future of our field.
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The seventh edition is substantially different from its predecessors, reflecting the continued growth and increasing sophistication of geriatrics as a defined medical discipline. Vitality and continued rejuvenation have been enhanced through the addition of six new chapters (Chapter 23: Quality of Care, Chapter 57: Common Non-pain Symptoms, Chapter 58: Effective Communication Strategies for Patients With Advanced Illness, Chapter 59: Palliative Medicine Across the Continuum of Care Including Hospice, Chapter 106: Coagulation Disorders, and Chapter 107: Plasma Cell Disorders) and recruitment of new authors for nearly 40% of the chapters. Despite adding new chapters, we have modified and combined others to maintain a total of 130, as in the sixth edition. This is the first edition of the book to be published in full color, thereby greatly enhancing the many illustrations and figures included. We recognize the increasing evidence regarding the care of older adults with serious illness(es) near the end of life and the integral role of palliative care in geriatric medicine. Therefore, we have established Principles of Palliative Medicine as one of the five major parts of the seventh edition, expanded the number of chapters addressing this topic, and added new palliative care content to many other chapters. To promote and facilitate the book’s utility as an educational resource for Geriatric Medicine fellows in training and others, each chapter now includes learning objectives and key clinical points. These have been linked to one or more of the Geriatric Fellowship Curriculum milestones to allow easy access by readers. This new educational emphasis is highly relevant to Bill Hazzard’s comments in the foreword.
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Two new editors have played a critical role in the revitalization of this textbook: Christine Ritchie, who has led the palliative medicine expansion, and Mark Supiano, who has led the added focus on the book’s role as an educational resource. In addition to Christine and Mark, the seventh edition’s editorial team includes me (my fifth edition); Joe Ouslander (his fourth edition); and Sanjay Asthana, Kevin High, and Stephanie Studenski (their second edition). We acknowledge the effort and contributions of retired editor Mary Tinetti (the fifth and sixth editions). Fortunately for all of us, Bill Hazzard has stayed actively involved as editor emeritus and senior advisor. The seventh edition acknowledges and recognizes the worldwide growth of the field of geriatric medicine. We are very pleased that in the seventh edition 35 authors who are in countries outside of the United States contributed to 13 of the chapters. Overall, our authors are a large and diverse group including many geriatricians but also a substantial number of subspecialists from a range of medical and surgical disciplines. In addition, multiple health profession disciplines are represented among the authors. Two of the textbook’s editors are women, and women contributed to over 60% of the chapters, most as lead or senior author.
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A major step forward for this textbook is the electronic version, which is now widely available online and will continue to be available as the seventh edition. One of the original goals of working with McGraw-Hill as the publisher of this textbook was to provide a link with Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. This link was greatly strengthened with the electronic version of the sixth edition of Hazzard’s Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, which became part of McGraw-Hill’s AccessMedicine.com collection. Access Medicine includes not only our textbook and Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, but also multiple other important books in the clinical library of McGraw-Hill. There are a number of key implications of our textbook being a part of McGraw-Hill’s AccessMedicine.com. First, it adds a living presence to the textbook as additional material can be added as online updates as needed. We anticipate that such updates will be available for many chapters of the textbook on a regular basis. Second, we are especially pleased that students of the health professions, both undergraduate and postgraduate, now have full access to our textbook through the electronic version if they are at an institution that subscribes to AccessMedicine. Finally, our authors can provide supplementary material and illustrations as well as educational materials, which will be accessible through the online version.
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Thus just as our population is inexorably aging, and medicine is faced with an ever-growing number of older patients with multiple and complex problems, we have been able to bring together the best minds and leaders in the field to provide authoritative guidance. Our authors present a highly diverse and dynamic range of thinking, that has not previously existed in our textbooks of geriatric medicine. We are now reaching a broader audience through the availability of the electronic version of the textbook. We have kept it a living and growing document that encompasses the rapid stream of new information, which is helping us to provide more compassionate and effective care to the rapidly growing population of older adults.
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Putting together a textbook of this magnitude requires enormous effort by many people. On behalf of the editors, I wish to particularly thank the many chapter authors who have contributed to the book. We especially recognize Jeffrey H. Silverstein, MD, senior author of the chapter on Anesthesia, who passed away prior to publication of the seventh edition. For decades, Dr. Silverstein was a passionate advocate for geriatrics, as well as a highly respected leader in the field of ethics.
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The strong and effective working relationship that we have with McGraw-Hill is made possible by the outstanding efforts of Karen G. Edmonson, Senior Editor for the McGraw-Hill geriatrics publishing program; Kim J. Davis, Managing Editor; and their McGraw-Hill colleagues who have ensured the progress of the publication and the important next steps in the textbook’s evolution. We are grateful for the continued support of James F. Shanahan, publisher at McGraw-Hill, who was instrumental in the initial publication of this textbook and served as its Managing Editor for the first six editions. We especially appreciate the efforts of Nancy Woolard from Wake Forest University School of Medicine, who has served as a senior editorial project manager for multiple previous editions. Her role for the current edition has been critical to provide a strong link to our past history and as the final common pathway for assembly of the seventh edition. We thank Drs. Alexandra Meier, Brett Porter, and Michelle Sorweid, Geriatric Medicine fellows at the University of Utah, for their helpful advice mapping the fellowship curricular milestones to relevant chapters in the textbook. We also acknowledge the staff who provide support for editorial efforts from our academic offices: Julie Kozak Seeger at the University of Michigan, Catherine Gouchenour at Florida Atlantic University, Eva Gray at the University of Wisconsin, and Helen Colombo at the University of California, San Francisco.
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