Representatives from key physician, hospital and patient safety organizations met last week to discuss the growing trend of assessing the competence of aging physicians and explore the question of whether national guidelines need to be developed. Why now? The number of physicians 65 years and older has more than quadrupled since 1975, reaching more than 241,000 in 2013, according to a recent report of the AMA Council on Medical Education. Senior physicians make up 23 percent of the nation’s physician population, and roughly 40 percent of them are actively engaged in patient care. “It is the opinion of the Council on Medical Education that physicians should be allowed to remain in practice as long as patient safety is not endangered and that, if needed, remediation should be a supportive, ongoing and proactive process,” the report states. “Self-regulation is an important aspect of medical professionalism, and helping colleagues recognize their declining skills is an important part of self-regulation,” the report states. “Therefore, physicians must develop guidelines/standards for monitoring and assessing both their own and their colleagues’ competency.” One of the primary recommendations of the report was to convene national stakeholders to further explore this issue. Read more at AMA Wire.