Medical Student Geriatric Experiences

Geriatric Practical Immersion Experience (PIE)

The Geriatric PIE Experience is part of the required 9 week community-based clinical experience for students during the summer after their first year of medical school. Students are required to complete geriatric didactic materials which focus on functional assessment and a cultural interview with elderly patients, then to put into practice what they learned by completing functional assessments and cultural interviews within their PIE clinic experience.

Home visit

Perspectives in Medicine (PIM)

Five-week Electives for 2nd and 3rd year students:

  • Senior Mentor Program: Students who successfully completed participation in the Senior Mentor Program during their first year of medical school will continue to meet with their mentors to carry out themed assignments throughout the semester. In addition, there will be classes and field trips on topics pertaining to the aging process. (Read more.)
  • Physician Home Visits in the 21st Century: With a combination of case based discussions, site visits, and computer based learning, this elective explores the role of physicians who provide consultations at home for those patients who cannot come to the clinics.
  • Care Beyond Cure: This elective will introduce the students to therapeutic approaches for the assessment and treatment of common end-of-life symptoms: pain, dyspnea, fatigue, anxiety, cachexia, nausea/vomiting, constipation, delirium, death rattle, depression, and terminal angst. In addition, the students will have the opportunity to interact with interdisciplinary hospice staff and patients/families to learn about non-drug interventions that are used to care for the dying.

Geriatric Medicine Ambulatory Clerkship

An elective rotation within the required Phase III Ambulatory Clerkship. It is designed to provide students with an advanced ambulatory rotation focused on the UNM Core Competencies: medical knowledge, patient care, communication skills, ethics and professionalism, practice-based learning and improvement, and systems-based care. The Geriatric Medicine Ambulatory Clerkship will give students an opportunity to provide comprehensive care to elderly patients and families in multiple settings. This clerkship will emphasize the continued management of the elderly patients and the complex medical, social, and ethical issues that arise in this type of care.

In the 4th Yr. Geriatric Elective (one month) students participate in a multidisciplinary approach to comprehensive geriatric assessment with a team of health care professionals (physicians, nurse practitioners, social workers, pharmacists, psychologists, etc.) Team members together evaluate and manage multiple complex medical, functional, psychosocial and caregiver problems faced by the rapidly expanding population of frail, elderly patients.

Students complete geriatric assessments in geriatric evaluation clinics at the Senior Health Center (two clinics weekly), and participate in the care of patients in the nursing home setting. Students accompany an attending on home visits to care for fragile homebound elderly patients. Students have an opportunity to attend subspecialty clinics in palliative care memory disorder, geriatric neurology, and neuropsychology evaluation clinic. Weekly Geriatric Interest rounds, with presentations by residents, fellows and attending physicians, are held.