Hospice: lessons for geriatricians.

Hospice is a new system of medical care provision that has undergone remarkable growth and received widespread support in the United States in less than a decade. Its success is apparently related to an accurate reading of social trends and the ability to fill a widely perceived void in the medical profession. Geriatric medicine is developing in the same environment and has not yet established its social or professional role. A review of the hospice experience suggests directions for the development of geriatric medicine that could promote its growth as a socially useful and professionally desirable new approach to medical education and service.