A geriatrician must be many things: doctor, comforter, detective, humble warrior, magician.

By Beth Macy
published Sunday, May 25, 2008

He’s a former Green Beret, a tough guy with a middle-aged paunch and a staccato-speed New York accent. If you happen to be the nurse or medical student walking next to him — and trying to take notes — he’s likely to snap his fingers at you and half-jokingly scold:

“You’re on Camardi speed now! Keep up!”

A woman hugs Dr. Michael Camardi after he told her that he’s not giving up on her father, who suffered a stroke.

But inside Ruth Kelley’s room at Springtree, a nursing home in Northeast Roanoke, the fast-talking tough guy turns soft, a country doctor type who seems to have all the time in the world.

When Carilion Clinic recruited Dr. Michael Camardi to work at its Center for Healthy Aging a year and a half ago, he was 58 years old and planning to scale back his schedule with an eye toward retirement.

Instead, he found himself embattled — at the office, at the hospital, at the nursing home, even on the phone.

But unlike his medic days in Vietnam, he couldn’t order reinforcements.

There simply wasn’t anyone to call.

Pick your report. Last month, the National Academy of Sciences issued the latest crisis call: There aren’t enough doctors trained in geriatrics, not enough med-school students entering the field and, even if the crop of students improved, there wouldn’t be enough doctors to teach them.

Ask Camardi to define his role, and he doesn’t say “doctor” or “professor” or even “medical director” — all of which, incidentally, he is.

Camardi sums up his mission to care for the elderly in a single word: warrior.