Imagine being a medical student participating in a first-of-its-kind research project aimed at improving the care of older patients. A fantastic opportunity for many, to be sure. Fortunately, for this year’s SHS/UHN Savlov/Schmidt Summer Scholars in Geriatrics, that was exactly what they did.
This unique summer program established in 2012 now attracts dozens of applicants from around the world each year. And from this year’s applicants ultimately, six medical students seeking to gain further exposure to geriatrics spent the summer developing a self-administered screening tool for older patients with cancer; considering how to augment geriatrics education among physiatry residents; evaluating the impact of geriatricians in rehabilitative care settings; analyzing the outcomes of the first volunteer program supporting older adults to be implemented across an integrated health system; scoping the views of geriatricians around the world on prescribing ice cream to older adults; and amassing large-scale international data describing sedation, analgesia, and delirium practices in older intensive care unit patients.
For their projects, each student worked under the supervision of a clinical mentor who provided them with guidance, advice and support. In my own project, I worked very closely with my student, Michelle Gyenes, a medical student from Ireland who took the lead on designing and implementing our study that surveyed close to 1,000 geriatricians from across 40 countries around their views around prescribing ice cream to manage unintentional weight loss in older adults. I was also happy to provide her with career advice and further mentorship as she carves her own path in medicine.
In addition to dedicated one-on-one mentorship from a clinical professional, the students are also given opportunities to shadow other geriatricians, physicians and other health professionals in acute, outpatient, rehab and community settings. My student for example spent time with me seeing patients including doing house calls with me this summer. They are also given opportunities to attend seminars conducted by leading practitioners and researchers to learn about the latest research in geriatrics and how to better to contribute to that growing body of knowledge as well.
One seminar that stood out in particular was on how to write an abstract for a scholarly journal, delivered by our own Dr. Nathan Stall, who is also an associate editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The seminar helped the students understand what journal editors are looking for in an abstract and how to best present their research findings.
This year’s students found their experience to be a very positive introduction to the world of geriatrics and healthy ageing:
“I cannot articulate enough how incredible I found this summer to be. I learned so much about what Geriatrics is all about in so many different facets. I found all the shadowing (Falls Clinic, Memory Clinic, General Geriatrics Clinic, Inpatient Geriatrics, House Calls) to be useful and irreplaceable,” says one student.
Another student simply told us, “I think the program is phenomenal.”
The SHS/UHN Savlov/Schmidt Summer Scholars in Geriatrics program was launched in 2012 to provide unique and structured learning opportunities for students to gain valuable research or project experience in a health care setting and to encourage them to consider a future career in the fields of ageing and geriatrics. To date this remarkable program has been able to host over 20 medical, nursing, social work, pharmacy and other students thus far and we look forward to many of them becoming the next future experts in caring for older adults.
Date modified: 2019-09-24
