Abstract
A rapid demographic transition to aging populations is imminent over the next decade, especially in Southeast Asian countries. An aging population presents a host of medical challenges, such as multimorbidity; chronic illnesses; and geriatric syndromes, such as frailty, falls, dementia, and incontinence. In order to tackle such issues efficiently, there is an urgent need to train future doctors in geriatric medicine. Aged care is a specialty in medicine that was not traditionally part of the undergraduate medical curriculum. With the changing demographic, aged care content needs to be integrated into the existing curriculum for undergraduate medical students. In this paper, we present an introductory novice level geriatric module that was developed for first-year medical undergraduate students in Monash University, Malaysia. The module consisted of collaborative active learning sessions on healthy aging, interaction with older adults from the community, and a simulated experiential activity. Feedback was collected from students on module completion. The immediate impact of the module was positive from the student responses. The findings from this study will be useful to inform the development and implementation of future educational interventions for aged care, as well as to support the establishment of a vertically integrated aged care curriculum, in order to prepare future doctors to provide healthcare for the ageing Asian population.
Highlights
Population ageing is occurring worldwide at an unprecedented pace
We describe an introductory module for aged care that was developed for first-year medical undergraduate students in Monash University, Malaysia
The novice-level geriatric module for Year One undergraduate medical students was developed with the objective of giving students a fresh perspective about the older person and ageing
Summary
Population ageing is occurring worldwide at an unprecedented pace. Globally, it is estimated that people aged 60 years and older will outnumber children under the age of 10 by the year 2030 [1]. There is an urgent need to embed geriatric medicine in medical undergraduate curricula and allied fields so that current and future generations of healthcare professionals develop skills to competently manage older patients. According to the WHO, ageism is defined as the stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination against people on the basis of their age [7] When such negative attitudes exist in medical personnel, it can affect the quality of care provided to older adults. There is still a lack of evidence on effective geriatric curriculum models that can lead to the generation of age-friendly doctors who are capable of dealing with the challenges of the rapidly expanding Asian older population. We describe an introductory module for aged care that was developed for first-year medical undergraduate students in Monash University, Malaysia.
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