Something is wrong with the way drugs are prescribed to the elderly in this country. Every year, according to last week's Journal of the American Medical Association, nearly 7 million older Americans--about one-fifth of the population age 65 or older--are given medications that are rarely appropriate for people their age. Worse still, the same article reports, nearly 1 million swallow pills that an expert panel has determined senior citizens should probably never take.
How does this happen? Mix-ups, pill sharing and people using expired prescriptions contribute, but at least part of the problem is the way doctors are trained. Pediatrics is...