Mentor on Aging Program
University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine
Each Year 1 student is paired with a healthy older adult who serves as a mentor on aging for a period of 18 months. Students initially meet with their mentors every other week for eight weeks and then monthly thereafter. The meetings occur in the homes of the mentors or on the grounds of the retirement village where the mentors live. Students are prepared for this relationship and the ensuing dialogue through participation in class meetings and in a student conference on aging, through discussions in small groups led by physicians, and reading assignments. Students write reflective essays about their experience, complete a joint project with their mentor, and author either a capstone paper or make a synthesizing oral presentation about an aspect of aging. The curriculum supports the learning objectives in gerontology and geriatrics developed by the American Geriatrics Society. These objectives operationalize, with respect to a defined population of older people, the more general competencies UMKC has set for its students. In turn, the UMKC competencies reflect the AAMC's MSOP objectives. The UMKC competencies and the MSOP objectives prompt learning objectives for the gerontology/geriatrics curriculum that the Geriatrics Society omitted: communication skills and responsibility for the health of communities.
Goals: The goal is to graduate medical students who, when entering the next phase of medical education as residents, are able to provide compassionate and competent care to older people. The curriculum will support the learning objectives in gerontology and geriatrics that the American Geriatrics Society developed. These objectives operationalize, with respect to a defined population of older people, the more general competencies UMKC has set for its students. In turn, the UMKC competencies reflect the AAMC's MSOP objectives. The UMKC competencies and the MSOP objectives prompt learning objectives for the gerontology/geriatrics curriculum that the Geriatrics Society omitted: communication skills and responsibility for the health of communities. Learners should be able to: 1. Understand the normal biological, psychological, and social processes of aging. 2. Understand the needs of older people ranging from the physical through the social. 3. Create models of resources that are and should be available to meet those needs. 4. Understand views of older people about what they want and need from physicians. 5. Understand the relationships between the key phases of the life cycle. Format: Mentor Program
Used with 200 1st year 2nd year students in a combined BA MD degree program in a combination of homes of mentors in a retirement community and small group discussions in a medical school class. Introducing this program represented a significant curriculum change that met student and faculty skepticism. The program was inserted into the last part of the first year curriculum and runs through the second year. The time slot was chosen to allow students to become acclimated to university life and to the rigors of a combined baccalaureate M.D. degree program before having to establish a relationship with an older person whom they did not know. But, by the beginning of the second semester of the first year, students begin to form an identity with the role of physician through their introductory medicine course. The demands of this mentor experience require them to shed their nascent sense of physicianhood and interact as a college age student with relatively healthy older people who function independently.