Geriatrics in primary care residency training

Abstract

The training in nursing homes and clinics described above constitutes a bare minimum of geriatric knowledge and skills needed by students and residents in internal medicine and family medicine. These lessons can be integrated into undergraduate medical school curriculum without changing current curricular structure by infusing geriatric themes and content into existing courses and clerkships. An example of a successful infusion was described by Newell and colleagues in the Journal of Gerontology and Geriatrics Education [17]. Effective curricular infusion into courses and clerkships requires institutional financial commitment and interdepartmental collaboration across a school of medicine.