A Geriatrics Curriculum for First Year Medical Students

The National Evaluation of Senior Mentor Programs: Older Adults in Medical Education

“…Data from virtually all available sources supported the finding: student attitude measures, student evaluations, student focus groups, student written narratives, and site visit interviews and focus groups independent of program duration or structure. Publications from the programs reported that student attitude scores on measures such as the University of California at Los Angeles Geriatrics Attitude Survey, the Aging Semantic Differential, and internally developed measures improved over the course of the senior mentor experience, 4,13–15 although there were reservations expressed in several programs about the reliability and performance of some of the measures used to evaluate student attitude change, 16 and consequently, qualitative measures such as focus groups and student course evaluations became important as corroborating sources of data. A number of published reports from the SMPs included in the evaluation pointed to the confidence that program staff had in student and mentor focus groups for evaluating student attitudes 17–19 .…”

“…A modest amount of SMP literature appeared by 2005 2–7 and revealed a variety of SMP models. Programs varied according to length of mentor‐student contact, extent of integration into the medical school curriculum, percentage of students participating, targeted objectives, and program names (e.g., Senior Partners, Senior Teacher Educator Partnership, Optimal Aging Program).…”