Medical Students in a Dementia Care Facility: an Enhanced Geriatric Psychiatry Experience.

Abstract

The 2012 Institute of Medicine report “The Mental Health and SubstanceUseWorkforce For Older Adults: InWhoseHands?” describes the burgeoning population of elderly in the USA and the critical shortage of clinicians trained to meet their mental health-care needs [1]. The report makes specific recommendations for strengthening the nation’s geriatric mental health workforce and urges development of model curricula for the entire spectrum of health-care providers who care for older adults. With the current shortage of specialist physicians in this field, in the future most geriatric mental health care will be provided by non-specialists. It is imperative that medical school education include an enhanced focus on preparing future physicians to address the mental health needs of older patients. Negative attitudes and stigma toward older patients with dementia are pervasive among medical students and other health professions [2]. Despite the tremendous demand for geropsychiatric care for people with dementia, the number of medical school graduates choosing to enter the field of geriatric psychiatry is woefully inadequate [3]. Studies document that clinical encounters with older patients have a positive effect on students’ sensitivity to geriatric issues and attitudes toward older people [2, 4]. In one study, researchers suggest that geriatric psychiatry programs create exemplary initiatives in the early years of medical education [5]. We developed an educational innovation, the Enhanced Geropsychiatric Experience (EGE) for third yearmedical students in a dementia care facility, which exposed students to patients with dementia with behavioral and psychological symptoms. Goals included increasing student participation and comfort, changing negative attitudes towards patients with dementia, and piquing student interest in the field of geriatric psychiatry.