Teaching geriatric assessment in home visits: the family physician/geriatrician attachment.
BACKGROUND
Geriatric clinical clerkships in Israel teach mostly about the hospitalized elder patient with almost no ambulatory experience. Meanwhile, primary care physicians provide most of the health care to the elderly in the community. This article describes an innovation in the curriculum of the 5th-year family medicine clerkship at the Goldman Medical School of Ben-Gurion University in Israel designed to improve the teaching of geriatrics in the ambulatory setting.


METHODS
During the clerkship, family physicians perform a home visit to one of their home-ridden elderly patients with a small group of medical students. During this visit, a geriatrician from the local hospital is included to the group for teaching purposes.


RESULTS
Most students rated this experience positively as did the family physicians and geriatricians who participated in this experience.


CONCLUSIONS
This liaison-attachment teaching experience allows the students to learn aspects of geriatrics that are spared during their geriatric clerkship, allows the family physician to use this opportunity as a consultation for homebound patients, and allows the tertiary care geriatrician to teach in the community.
Tandeter
Howard
H
Department of Family Medicine, Sial Research Center for Family Medicine and Primary Care, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel. howard@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
Peleg
Roni
R
Menahem
Sasson
S
Biderman
Aya
A
Fried
Vera A
VA
D000553:Ambulatory Care; D002982:Clinical Clerkship; D003479:Curriculum; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate / Q000379:methods; D005194:Family Practice / Q000193:education*; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D005853:Geriatrics / Q000193:education*; D006792:House Calls; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007557:Israel