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Batie grew up and went to med school in Gainesville, Florida, before moving to Baton Rouge, at age 24, to complete his residency in family medicine. Although he spent his childhood in

Florida, “I grew up in Baton Rouge,” he says. The culture was different, the food was different, the politics were different, and the storms were different — Louisiana is more prone to

severe flooding from hurricanes than Gainesville, in the inland portion of northern Florida. The needs in terms of health care were different, too. Right after finishing his residency, in

1983, Batie worked in a pair of community centers, both located in poor sections of Baton Rouge. “People in their 30s and 40s were bringing in their parents who were in their 60s, 70s and

80s, and that got me more interested in taking care of senior citizens,” he says. In 1990, Batie sat for the board certification exam in geriatrics and passed. He later served as the

associate director of community affairs for the family medicine residency program at Baton Rouge General Medical Center, and on a series of committees with the state's governor. His

work has informed his efforts to build a healthy lifestyle for himself and his family. Batie practices “square-foot gardening,” a method conceived in the 1970s by civil engineer Mel

Bartholomew that suits Batie's well-ordered mindset. It involves a rigid routine of soil tending and weed care, planting in squares rather than rows. He grows okra, tomatoes, mustard

greens, spinach, Swiss chard, watermelon, squash and, in large flowerpots, pineapples. Dr. Batie with his wife, Veris. Daymon Gardner In his practice every day, Batie sees chronic disease

connected to poor eating habits, specifically uncontrolled hypertension, kidney disease and diabetes. “Unfortunately, I am in a state where eating is celebrated,” he says. “There is a

segment of the population that says, ‘I would rather die eating something I enjoy than taking care of my health.’ And that makes it very hard to diet and exercise.” Income level and economic

status play a role, too. “You can eat healthy while poor,” Batie says, “but it's a little bit harder." Service to others is a Batie family value: Their son, Theron, a former board

member for Habitat for Humanity, now lives in Chicago and is training to be a pilot; daughter Krystal, a pediatric registered nurse, still lives in Baton Rouge and continues to join Donnie

and Veris for services at South Baton Rouge Church of Christ. That is, until the age of coronavirus. Now worship for everybody is via Zoom. The pastor and some members of the choir are the

only ones in the actual church. Prayers are sent out over the phone to a nervous congregation. Batie will not tell me that he is frightened, but Veris is more forthcoming. “I have prayed and

I have asked God to remove the virus from not just the United States but from the world,” she says. “This is the time for prayer,” she adds. “We can never have too much prayer.” By

mid-April, the COVID-19 crisis in the United States had grown even more dangerous for older Americans. That reality is bringing America's geriatrician shortage into a new and harsher

focus, as Batie suggested. The virus presents a challenge not only to older people but to untrained doctors unfamiliar with older patients’ response to the infection itself and to various

health interventions. For example, the Global Council on Brain Health recently reported that half of people 65 and older will experience postsurgery delirium. “We were at a place where there

was still a shortage of ventilators,” says Michèle J. Saunders, a national expert in geriatric health professions education and former president of the Gerontological Society of America. “A

non-geriatrician might assume the older person is permanently confused and triage him or her to a lower priority for a ventilator. That would be disastrous for a temporarily confused older

adult." Dr. Batie working into the night at Promise Hospital in Baton Rouge. Daymon Gardner THE NEED FOR CARE AS A NATION GROWS OLDER The shortage of geriatricians in the United States

has many causes, but a primary one is demographics. “Within just a couple decades, older people are projected to outnumber children for the first time in U.S. history,” reaching 77 million

by 2034, the Census Bureau recently reported. And the number of doctors in training going into geriatric medicine isn't keeping up. “Over the last 10 years the number of certified

geriatricians in America has stayed pretty flat,” says Elizabeth Bragg, an assistant professor in the School of Nursing at Xavier University in Cincinnati and author of numerous papers on

the topic. One reason for that is money. A 2017 survey by the Association of American Medical Colleges reported that medical students are typically graduating from four-year programs with

debts of around $190,000. That motivates new doctors to avoid choosing to become geriatricians, whose pay is significantly lower than that of other specialists. According to the “MedScape

Physician Compensation Report 2020,” the average orthopedist makes half a million dollars annually, the average cardiologist makes $438,000, and the average anesthesiologist makes $398,000.

Meanwhile, the median salary for a geriatrician is about $240,000. Geriatricians must invest time in additional education, yet there is little financial upside. To become a subspecialist in

geriatric medicine, first a student must go through the typical arc of medical schooling. That is, four years in an undergraduate degree program, four years of medical school and then at

least three years of residency in either family medicine, internal medicine or psychiatry. Then there's an additional one to two years in a geriatrics fellowship, in which physicians

spend time with older patients in a clinic or nursing home setting and learn the specific knowledge and skills for how to provide a continuum of care for them. “Essentially, you have to know

just how the body wears and tears as it ages,” says Louisiana geriatrician Teresa Garrison, M.D. While the fellowships are often sponsored by big hospitals or agencies like the U.S.

Department of Veterans Affairs, “These folks are coming out with phenomenally huge medical student debt,” Saunders says. “Physicians who go into geriatrics need to be able to make a living.”