Increasingly, the health care needs of older people are dominating the field of medicine and the health care system. The supply of physician gerontologists and geriatricians, the attention they pay to the special needs of the elderly, and the adequacy of their training are addressed in these hearings, which consider a Senate bill to improve the education in geriatrics of primary care physicians. Attention is directed to four specific concerns: (1) whether older persons differ from younger people in ways that have implications for medical practice, and whether there is a body of knowledge about these differences; (2) whether the differences have implications for the training of medical practitioners; (3) the present and near-term future availability of appropriately trained medical personnel; and (4) feasible and reasonable ways to train additional numbers of such physicians, if more are needed. The bill, which would amend section 788 of the Public Health Service Act, would make available an additional $4 million to expand present programs and create new ones to train physicians who plan to teach geriatric medicine. Sponsors of the bill hope that by 1992 the program would produce an additional 900 physicians trained to teach residents and practicing physicians the essentials of geriatrics. (SW)