A Consultation Service in Geriatric Medicine at a University Hospital

To the Editor.— At Boston University Medical Center, a consultative service in geriatric medicine has been functioning for approximately one year.¹Designed to provide a comprehensive consultation for the geriatric patient at a short-term care university hospital and to be an integral part of a training program for house staff, students, and other professionals, the service is staffed by a geriatric nurse practitioner-clinical specialist and an internist with a special interest in geriatric medicine. An analysis of the first 125 requests for consultation shows the following reasons given by the physician requesting a consultation: general geriatric evaluation (52), "aftercare" evaluation (35), rehabilitative potential (34), and mental status evaluation (4). Patients seen have been located on the general medical service (68), the orthopedic service (16), the surgical service (14), the medical oncology unit (11), the neurology service (8), the psychiatry service (5), the renal dialysis unit (2), and the spinal