The introduction of substantive geropsychiatry training into the medical
school curriculum and residency programs in medicine and family practice
involves overcoming such obstacles as competition among specialties for
curriculum time, "ageism" (negative attitudes toward the elderly), limited
financial resources, and scarcity of specialized educators and model
curricula. These obstacles can be overcome by developing educational
alliances with chairpersons and training directors, recruiting charismatic
teachers, providing varied clinical experiences with healthy and impaired
elderly patients, and by providing formative as well as summative methods
of trainee and program evaluation.
Abstract Teaser