Continuing education (CE) provides community healthcare practitioners an opportunity to develop and maintain competence after their initial training is complete. With increasing clinical demands and limited resources for practicing community providers, the need for easily accessible, high-quality continuing education is in growing demand. Also,…

The objective of this study was to identify differences between geriatricians and hospitalists in caring for hospitalized older adults, so as to inform faculty development programs that have the goal of improving older patient care. Eleven hospitalists and 13 geriatricians were surveyed regarding knowledge, confidence, and practice patterns in…

A four-year faculty development program to enhance geriatrics learning among house officers in seven surgical and related disciplines and five medical subspecialties at a large academic institution resulted in changes in attitudes and knowledge of faculty participants, expanded curricula and teaching activities in geriatrics, and enhanced and…

This study examined non-geriatrician physicians' experiences in a geriatrics-focused faculty development program, and effects of the program on their geriatrics knowledge and their teaching and practice. In-depth interviews were conducted with all physicians (n = 26) participating in the Dean's Faculty Scholars in Aging program. Most participants…

Shay, Simpson, and Biernat describe geriatric dentistry training that included mentorship and shared experiences with physician trainees. Cohen and Lyles describe a fellowship program in which physicians care for older patients in unique settings and conduct research projects. (SK)

Efforts to prepare faculty to teach students to work with culturally diverse populations of older adults included conferences on course content and instructional methods and minifellowships in ethnogeriatrics. Most faculty reported changing course content to include knowledge gained from the training. (SK)

From 1985-1992 the Virginia Geriatric Education Center broadcast via satellite 22 videoconferences involving over 22,000 health professionals in the United States, Canada, and Bermuda. The program required substantial marketing to attract sufficiently large audiences to be cost effective, was labor intensive, and necessitated technical expertise.…

The first four years of a summer faculty development program were evaluated through participant surveys, quarterly trainee logs, and reports of participant projects. The program received consistently high ratings; number of courses with gerontology/geriatrics content increased; and trainees went on to train peers, students, and laypersons. (SK)

A yearlong training program involved 77 faculty from multiple disciplines in improving aging-related knowledge and appreciation for other disciplines' treatment of the topic. Evaluation showed good results for passive cognitive learning, slightly less for active cognitive learning, and mixed for affective. Four regional geriatric education centers…

This study compared the research productivity of 97 senior staff members of geriatrics education centers and 91 faculty enrollees in a professional development program. Findings indicated that more senior educators (75 percent) than enrollees (40 percent) had published in the previous three years. (DB)

An analysis of policy implementation by the Geriatric Education Centers (GEC) program is presented, using a model developed by Sabatier and Mazmanian (1980). A policy by the Bureau of Health Professions to expand education and training efforts in geriatrics and gerontology led to the creation of four GECs in 1983. By 1989, 38 centers had been…

The project described in this report was designed to: (1) address the lack of adequately trained faculty members needed to introduce geriatrics within colleges of pharmacy, (2) facilitate the use of existing materials within the educational program provided pharmacy students, (3) teach a geriatric pharmacy course twice at each of Texas' three…

A survey of chief academic officers and faculty (n=27) in 16 schools of optometry found that, since 1986, there has been a 75% increase in institutions requiring coursework in geriatric optometry and an 83% increase in those offering continuing professional education in this field. However, 67% of faculty report no formal training. Three faculty…

Describes the outcomes of the Community College-Nursing Home Partnership Project in three areas: faculty development, curriculum innovation, and collaborative relationships. Explains how the project allies associate degree nursing faculty with practitioners to incorporate nursing home care and geriatrics into the curriculum. (JOW)

Obstacles to developing training programs in geriatric medicine include shortage of faculty members and negative attitudes toward geriatrics on the part of students. For two years, family medicine residents have participated in a required rotation in geriatric medicine at the Duke University Medical Center. (Author/MLW)