Ageism in the Time of COVID: Podcast with Louise Aronson

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GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast 43 min 4 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 9 hours ago
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What is the purpose of this episode and who is the guest?

Louise Aronson 0:01
The Jerry Powell Podcast is brought to you by Archstone Foundation, preparing society and meeting the needs of an aging population. And now,
Eric Widera 0:10
here
Hazel Mae 0:11
are your hosts.
Eric Widera 0:13
Welcome to the Jerry Powell Podcast. This is Eric Guadera.
Alex Smith 0:16
This is Alex Smith.
Eric Widera 0:18
And Alex, it's been a while since I saw you.
Alex Smith 0:20
It's been a while. I got a haircut. Oh, nice. COVID haircut. Couldn't take it anymore. Shaved it all off.
Eric Widera 0:28
Wait, I see somebody else on our Zoom call.
Alex Smith 0:30
Yes, we are fortunate and honored to have a return guest, Louise Aronson, who is with us today. She's a professor of medicine at UCSF in the Division of Geriatrics. She's the author of the book, Elderhood, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. We did a podcast with her about that book. We'll have a link to that in the show notes. She's been writing furiously in the midst of this COVID epidemic about ageism with articles in the New England Journal, Times, Vox, Atlantic, Forbes, and other outlets soon to come. Welcome back to the Jerry Pal podcast, Louise.
Louise Aronson 1:07
I am honored to be on twice. I feel like that's some kind of stature I have to figure out what to do with. I was going to say frequent flyer miles, but those are not so useful with me.
Yeah.
Eric Widera 1:18
We'll give you a branded Jerry Palface mask. How about that?
Louise Aronson 1:23
Oh, that would be
Alex Smith 1:24
awesome. We need those. That's actually not
Louise Aronson 1:26
a bad
Alex Smith 1:26
idea.
Louise Aronson 1:27
I would wear them. I'm going into all these senior facilities. I would totally wear that. And they would say, what is on your
Alex Smith 1:34
face? What is that? We had Jerry Pal t-shirts at one point. This is a non sequitur. We'll get to the song. But I would wear the Jerry Pal t-shirts. I wore it to my kid's elementary school. And this guy looks at me and says, Jerry Pal, is that like PayPal for older adults?
Yeah.
Louise Aronson 1:49
actually really smart
Eric Widera 1:53
uh how embarrassed were your kids from wearing that t-shirt alex
Alex Smith 1:57
no they love it
Eric Widera 1:58
great
Alex Smith 1:58
dad's famous he's on youtube
Louise Aronson 2:03
how to make it in the eyes of your children
Eric Widera 2:08
louise we always start off with song requests you got a song request for alex
Louise Aronson 2:12
Okay. Well, I have to admit, I've been doing a lot of public health and the whole ageism thing. So I picked REM. It's the end of the world.
Hazel Mae 2:21
Yeah.
Louise Aronson 2:21
As we know it, just to be clear, it's not the end of the world, full stop.
Eric Widera 2:25
Right. Is that the song request or you're just making a statement that it's the end of the world?
Louise Aronson 2:30
The song that's one of the two songs going through my head. And so, yeah, I'm hoping I'm not predicting the future.
Alex Smith 2:38
I hope not, too. But, you know, things are bad. COVID, George Floyd. And then we have like, you know, unmarked officers pulling people off the street in Portland and throwing them in vans.
Louise Aronson 2:50
Don't forget murder hornets. And poverty, like really bad poverty and hunger.
Alex Smith 2:55
Yeah, this
Louise Aronson 2:56
is the appropriate
Alex Smith 2:57
song for the time. I will try to get through it without stumbling, which is hard with this tongue twister, but I love this song, so thank you for requesting it.
Sure.
Alex Smith 3:10
That's great, it starts with an earthquake Birds and snakes, an airplane Lenny Bruce is not afraid i have a hurricane listen to yourself churn world to its own needs don't miss your own needs speed it up a knock speed grunt no strength the ladder starts to clatter with a fear height down height wire in a fire representing seven games and a government for hire and a combat site left her wasn't coming in a hurry with the furies beating down your neck team by team reporters babble trump tell It's the end of the world as we do it. It's the end of the world.
Louise Aronson 4:21
Wow, that was awesome. You did it.
Alex Smith 4:24
First time for everything. Yep.
Louise Aronson 4:26
That
Alex Smith 4:26
was
Louise Aronson 4:27
really great.

How does the REM “End of the World” song request set the tone for the discussion?

Alex Smith 4:28
Thank you. That's fun.
Eric Widera 4:29
All right, Luis. There are so many things that I'm worried about right now and that we're all worried about. So many things going on in 2020. Some of these things have been lasting for centuries. Do I have to add ageism as another thing that I need to worry about right now?
Louise Aronson 4:49
Eric, you're not seriously not already worried about ageism and you call yourself a geriatrician? You need to hang your head in chain. That is just terrible. Yes, you should worry about ageism because we live in this crazy world where nobody wants to die and people want to stay alive and they want to do all these things, but it's not okay to grow old.

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