Summary
Introduction
Because of the aging demographics nearly all medical specialties require faculty who are competent to teach geriatric care principles to learners, yet many non-geriatrician physician faculty members report they are not prepared for this role.
Aims
To determine the impact of a new educational intervention designed to improve the self-efficacy and ability of non-geriatrician clinician-educators to teach geriatric medicine principles to medical students and residents.
Description
Forty-two non-geriatrician clinician-educator faculty from17 academic centers self-selected to participate in a 3-day on-site interactive intensive course designed to increase knowledge of specific geriatric medicine principles and to enhance teaching efficacy followed by up to a year of mentorship by geriatrics faculty after participants return to their home institutions. On average, 24% of their faculty time was spent teaching and 57% of their clinical practices involved patients aged over 65 years. Half of all participants were in General Internal Medicine, and the remaining were from diverse areas of medicine.
Evaluation
Tests of geriatrics medical knowledge and attitudes were high at baseline and did not significantly change after the intervention. Self-rated knowledge about specific geriatric syndromes, self-efficacy to teach geriatrics, and reported value for learning about geriatrics all improved significantly after the intervention. A quarter of the participants reported they had achieved at least one of their self-selected 6-month teaching goals.
Discussion
An intensive 3-day on-site course was effective in improving self-reported knowledge, value, and confidence for teaching geriatrics principles but not in changing standardized tests of geriatrics knowledge and attitudes in a diverse group of clinician-educator faculty. This intervention was somewhat associated with new teaching behaviors 6 months after the intervention. Longer-term investigations are underway to determine the sustainability of the effect and to determine which factors predict the faculty who most benefit from this innovative model.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Administration on Aging, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A profile of older Americans 2001. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; 2001. Available from: http://www.aoa.gov.
Wenger NS, Solomon DH, Roth CP, et al.. The quality of medical care provided to vulnerable community-dwelling older patients. Ann Intern Med. 2003;139:740–7.
Tanner CE, Eckstrom E, Desai SS, Joseph CL, Ririe MR, Bowen JL. Uncovering frustrations. A qualitative needs assessment of academic general internists as geriatric care providers and teachers. J Gen Intern Med. 2006;21:51–5.
Pereles I, Russell ML. Needs for CME in geriatrics. Part 2: physician priorities and perceptions of community representatives. Can Fam Physician. 1996;42:632–40.
Williams ME, Connolly NK. What practicing physicians in North Carolina rate as their most challenging geriatric medicine concerns. J Am Geriatr Soc. 1990;38:1230–4.
Darer JD, Hwang W, Pham HH, Bass EB, Anderson G. More training needed in chronic care: a survey of US physicians. Acad Med. 2004;79:541–8.
McNamara RM, Rousseau E, Sanders AB. Geriatric emergency medicine: a survey of practicing emergency physicians. Ann Emerg Med. 1992;21:796–801.
Drickamer MA, Levy B, Irwin KS, Rohrbaugh RM. Perceived needs for geriatric education by medical students, internal medicine residents and faculty. J Gen Intern Med. 2006;21:1230–4.
Simon SR, Fabiny AR, Kotch J. Geriatrics training in general internal medicine fellowship programs: current practice, barriers, and strategies for improvement. Ann Intern Med. 2003;139:621–7.
Rubin CD, Stieglitz H, Vicioso B, Kirk L. Development of geriatrics-oriented faculty in general internal medicine. Ann Intern Med. 2003;139:615–20.
Solomon DH, Burton JR, Lundebjerg NE, Eisner J. The new frontier: increasing geriatrics expertise in surgical and medical specialties. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2000;48:702–4.
Kern DE, Thomas PA, Howard DM, Bass EB. Curriculum development for medical education: a six-step approach. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1998.
Schmaltz H, Christmas C, Gozu A, Durso SC. A geriatrics needs assessment for academic teaching faculty in selected areas. Poster presented at: American Geriatrics Society Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL, 2005.
Lee M, Wilkerson L, Reuben DB, Ferrell BA. Development and validation of a geriatric knowledge test for medical students. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2004;52:983–8.
Reuben DB, Lee M, Davis JW Jr, et al.. Development and validation of a geriatrics attitudes scale for primary care residents. J Am Geriatr Soc. 1998;46:1425–30.
Weinberg SL, Abramowitz SK. Data Analysis for the Behavioral Science using SPSS. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 2002.
Acknowledgements
All authors had full access to all of the data in the study and Dr. Christmas assumes full responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. This study was funded by a grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. Drs. Durso and Christmas are Miller-Coulson Scholars. The authors are grateful to Dr. David Reuben and Dr. Ming Lee for their assistance in scoring the UCLA Test of Geriatrics Knowledge and Attitudes tests.
Conflict of Interest
None disclosed.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Christmas, C., Park, E., Schmaltz, H. et al. A Model Intensive Course in Geriatric Teaching for Non-geriatrician Educators. J GEN INTERN MED 23, 1048–1052 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-008-0585-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-008-0585-1