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I recently attended a lively Trent regional meeting on medical student education. It was a celebration of 30 years’ teaching of elderly health care in Nottingham and an opportunity to look back, take stock and plan ahead.

My brief was to explain what the BGS did for medical undergraduates. This is a brief summary of my presentation:

UK Survey of the curriculum
In 2004, Peter Crome and colleagues surveyed the teaching of Geriatric Medicine in British medical schools. The stimuli were the move from specialty- based teaching to a thematic modular curriculum; the increase in Special Study Modules and a concern that academic units were withdrawing from student teaching.

Questionnaires were sent to Deans, Chairs and other Heads of Departments and members of the Education and Training Committee. The consensus was that geriatric medicine should be taught to all undergraduates, as a special subject, in all years of the course. The tutors should be academics and NHS consultants in geriatrics. Most teaching should be ward based, but opportunities in clinics, general practice and day hospitals should supplement this. The professors felt that it was essential or important that they were involved, that all students should be examined (by OSCEs, clinical exams and course work) and that there was sufficient time on the courses for teaching about ageing and elderly care.
The full survey can be found on the BGS website .

The medical undergraduate curriculum
Also on our website is the excellent BGS Best Practice Guide 2007, covering knowledge, skills, attitudes, core competencies, learning opportunities and assessment. .

Undergraduate teaching is rightly emphasised in consultant job advertisements. Teaching is also acknowledged in revalidation and in CPD assessments, with guidelines on how to define aims, goals and methods, design suitable slides, be relevant and show enthusiasm. Trainees have to demonstrate satisfactory participation in organising undergraduate training, show that they have been trained how to teach and that their teaching has been peer reviewed.

Survey of UK Academics
Given the accepted need for academics to be at the centre of student teaching, it is of concern that several medical schools have no Chairs in geriatrics. The newest schools - Peninsula and York/Hull - have yet to create these posts. There are vacant posts in Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham and London. On the other hand, there are now nearly 60 professors in geriatrics, related sub specialties or geriatricians whose chairs are in such subjects as leadership, education and ethnic health.

Our Academic Lead, John Potter is working with Steve Jackson to compile an updated list of all academics in the country. This will help us to campaign for a greater academic presence and be a useful resource for the exchange of ideas about teaching and research.

Prizes and Grants
The Amulree prize (named after the first President of the BGS) is for the best essay submitted by a medical or dental student. There are three cash prizes and the winner receives a certificate at the Society’s dinner. Previous winning subjects have been anaesthesia, anti-oxidants and bereavement.

The Movement Disorders Section prize is given to the best essay on Parkinson’s disease. It is open to nursing, therapy and science as well as medical students. Again, there are cash prizes and the winning essay is published on the BGS website.

BGS Scotland has the Ferguson Anderson essay prize.

There are also grants for elective and vacation work involving projects on health in old age. The aims are to broaden perceptions and experiences of old age by periods of organised study overseas. Successful applicants submit their reports to the Education and Training Committee. The John Bulpitt prizes (two each year) are for UK or Irish dental as well as medical students, who may do their elective anywhere in the world

Innovations
We can all learn from each other. From other speakers at the meeting, I learned about the “ageing game” in Nottingham and have found that students respond well to such experiential learning. It seems sensible to involve trainee nurses and therapists in tutorials for student doctors. Some schools have a B.Sc option in ageing. Several centres now teach community geriatrics and give students the chance to learn about nursing home medicine. Others involve GPs. Nottingham has a long tradition of physicians and psychiatrists providing a combined teaching course. Essays may not be academically kosher but are still encouraged in some places.

Topics for consideration might include forbidden phrases in Geriatrics, gait analysis, physical signs in old age, politics, policy and health economics.

John Gladman emphasised the importance of junior doctors as role models and inspirational teachers - perhaps we should be thinking of ways of rewarding the best ones.

Graham Mulley

BGS Newsletter, September 2009
Issue 23 ISSN 1748-634000 23