Next year's junior class will be the first to spend four weeks in a clerkship rotation in Geriatric Medicine. The clerkship is a result of several factors, including the Center on Aging Project and the increasing population of senior citizens in this country. One focus of the Geriatrics Clerkship will be Palliative Care. Ruth Allen, Ph.D ., and Mildred Savidge, Ph.D. , of the Office of Educational Development are assisting Reed Thompson, M.D. , in the design and evaluation of the Palliative Care unit. This part of the curriculum will help students learn to deal with issues surrounding the end of a patient's life, including pain and symptom management, and the personal and spiritual issues which patients and their loved ones confront at this time.
Teaching is to be conducted by physicians and other members of an interdisciplinary care team.
The evaluation of this new unit of instruction will include cognitive exams and evaluation of student case presentations to evaluate student outcomes, and student course evaluations and student focus groups to evaluate the program on Palliative Care.