Level of Comfort in Evaluating Older Patients Amongst Medical Students and Emergency Medicine Residents

Authors

Lily L. Berrin, University of Pittsburgh School of MedicineFollow
Phraewa Thatphet, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical SchoolFollow
Anita N. Chary, Baylor College of MedicineFollow
Surriya C. Ahmad, Weill Cornell Medicine/New York-Presbyterian HospitalFollow
Don Melady, Schwarz/Reisman Emergency Medicine Institute/Mount Sinai Health System/University of TorontoFollow
Shan W. Liu, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical SchoolFollow

Abstract

Introduction

As the population ages, emergency physicians must be better equipped to manage the complex needs of older patients. While geriatric core competencies have been developed for medical students and emergency medicine (EM) residents, little work has been done to evaluate EM trainees’ comfort with these competencies, or their interest in and barriers to learning more about Geriatric Emergency Medicine (GEM).

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional study of EM residents and medical students in their clinical years of training with interest in EM. We used an online self-administered survey to evaluate trainees’ self-reported comfort with previously reported geriatric competency domains, in addition to exploring GEM education and interest.

Results

169 trainees participated in the survey, 71% of which were medical students and 29% of which were residents. A majority of medical students (66%) and residents (92%) overall reported comfort evaluating and managing older patients in the ED, but comfort varied with each competency domain. Year of training within these groups was not reliably predictive of increased comfort across the various domains. Common barriers to learning more about GEM identified include exposure in medical education and training for medical students and residents, at 59% and 65% respectively. Medical students also noted that more exposure in preclinical and clinical training would increase interest in GEM, at 57% and 54%, respectively. For residents, learning more about what a career in GEM looks like would increase interest in GEM (51%). Common resources used to learn about older patients were society guidelines for medical students (56%) and UpToDate for residents (82%). Only 30% of medical students noted that their medical school offers a dedicated geriatric curriculum, and medical students whose medical school offered a geriatrics curriculum reported more comfort in evaluating and managing older patients in the ED.

Conclusion

While the majority of trainees surveyed felt comfortable in the geriatric core competencies, increased geriatrics exposure in preclinical and clinical training could increase interest in GEM. Such exposure may be best accomplished earlier in medical training and will be important in creating a future EM physician workforce that is competent in caring for this complex and important patient population.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Berrin, Lily L.; Thatphet, Phraewa; Chary, Anita N.; Ahmad, Surriya C.; Melady, Don; and Liu, Shan W. (2022) "Level of Comfort in Evaluating Older Patients Amongst Medical Students and Emergency Medicine Residents," Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine: Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 5.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17294/2694-4715.1024
Available at: https://institutionalrepository.aah.org/jgem/vol3/iss1/5