Almost every other week for more than a decade, geriatrician Sarah Beck, MD, has gathered with a group of older veterans to enact one of her superpowers — translating medical jargon into easily understood health lessons.
Beck, an associate professor of clinical practice in the Division of Geriatric Medicine in the University of Colorado Department of Medicine, has been helping lead the group, appropriately called the Healthy Aging Group, since 2014 as part of her work with the Rocky Mountain Regional Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Nearly each week, the group will host a presentation at a clinic in Golden on a different topic — ranging from lung health, to vaccines, to osteoporosis — that is open to VA patients aged 65 and older. Although the topics vary, Beck always aims to teach the participants something new, encourage more preventative health screenings, and foster a sense of community.
“We want this group to feel like a mini medical school where we teach people about how their bodies work so that they can share that information with others,” Beck says. “This is an opportunity for them to learn how to be advocates of their own health, and we hope they walk away with resources and social connections to other veterans.”
When Beck leads a presentation, she often sees a familiar face in the crowd — Lloyd Bauer, a 79-year-old United States Navy veteran who has been attending the group’s sessions since practically the beginning. He says a big reason why he continues to show up is because of Beck.
“She is the glue that keeps this group together — because of the person she is,” Bauer says.
Although Bauer describes Beck as the glue, the Healthy Aging Group’s origins date back to before she was a faculty member at CU. In fact, Beck, who received her internal medicine residency training at CU, learned about group visits while she was completing her geriatric medicine fellowship training at CU.
Bauer was already attending a VA group meeting with a focus on older adults, as the group was recommended to him by a therapist he was seeing at the VA. He enjoyed the sessions and was initially hesitant when he learned that the therapist who was leading the group was transferring to another location and someone new would be stepping in.
“I remember the day that Dr. Beck came. She was sitting right across from me at the table,” he says. “It didn’t take long before she earned my respect. She would host these mini medical classes and teach us about different parts of the body, and she’d always ask, ‘What do you want to learn?’ She always wants input from us.”
Beck, who had begun working as a primary care physician at the Golden VA Clinic after completing her fellowship training, says she wanted to lead the group because of her desire to care for older adults.
“I’ve always had an interest in preventive medicine, explaining medical concepts to patients in a way that they can understand, and helping people become their own advocate,” says Beck, who now works as a primary care provider exclusively for older adults. “It’s an honor to work at the VA and care for our veterans, because some of them have had challenges in getting the care they need. I feel honored to be an advocate with them so they get what they need.”
The Healthy Aging Group is a type of group visit, which is a medical health care delivery model that invites multiple patients to gather together and get information from a clinician. Beck co-leads the group with a social worker who works in the VA’s clinic, and the pair rotate each week between leading a session on a topic relevant to the veterans. They also occasionally invite other clinicians and community leaders, such as police officers and district attorneys, to present information relevant to older adults, such as common crimes and scams to look out for.
“We’ve covered almost everything under the sun, and we always ask participants what they want to learn about,” she says. “One of the first classes I led was on how the lungs work, because when I first started my practice, patients would tell me they were using an inhaler, but they didn’t know what type of inhaler they used.
“I focused my session on explaining different types of inhalers and even contacted the CU School of Medicine to get lungs from cadavers to show the veterans,” she adds. “The attendees were able to look at the lungs, poke them with a glove, and actually see what smoking does to lungs.”
Beyond informing veterans, Beck also aims to promote preventive health measures. For example, when she presented on osteoporosis, at the end of the session, she looked through the attendees’ charts to make sure they’ve had a bone density scan. When discussing lung health, she checked that the participants had completed pulmonary function tests to assess if they have lung disease. At the end of a session about flu season, a nurse was on standby to give participants a flu shot if they needed one.
“These group visits are a great opportunity for primary care providers like me to connect with patients on a non-scheduled basis. If there’s something they need in the VA, they can communicate that to me, and I can communicate it to their provider,” Beck says. “It also gives an opportunity for veterans to create a community amongst themselves, offering an important social outlet for people who may be struggling with depression or PTSD.”
Having grown up in Great Falls, Montana, Bauer joined the Navy when he was 19 years old in 1964. Over the following five years, he embarked on two trips to Vietnam.
“We cruised up and down the coast, offering gunfire support,” Bauer says. “Then, we would spend a few days at a port in a different country before going back to Vietnam. I saw a lot of different countries before coming back home.”
Upon returning to the U.S. in 1969, Bauer was discharged and decided to move from Montana to Colorado, where he attended an air conditioning and refrigeration technology school. During his second time in Vietnam, he had broken his back, leading him to connect with the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center and the VA clinic in Golden.
Given his curiosity and engineering mindset, Bauer has always enjoyed attending the Healthy Aging Group.
“I love learning about my body and how things work. I also love meeting new people,” he says.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bauer befriended two other men in the group, and they began meeting every two weeks at a park to eat lunch and “solve the world’s problems,” he says with a laugh. “It was camaraderie.”
“This group helps veterans in different ways,” he says. “It’s a place to go meet new people and learn new things, and everyone has a say in what the topics should be. What someone else is getting out of it may be different from what I’m getting, but I think the core group remains because of Dr. Beck.”