ABSTRACT
If you have recently been appointed a Consultant Physician in geriatric medicine, the development of the care of the elderly in your district will henceforth depend in large measure on your leadership. Your role will have two main functions, medicine and management. As a doctor, you will be expected to provide health care for older people with acute and longer-term illness and disability, and to give advice to general practitioners, your hospital colleagues and others. As a manager, you will need to set up and maintain a service framework in which health care can be carried out to the highest standard, and you will have to build harmonious relationships with all relevant staff in hospital and community. No matter how busy you are it is important that you keep a good proportion of your time and energy for each of these functions.
