Geriatrics is a medical specialty, but it is important for almost all doctors, whether they practice orthopedics, emergency medicine or psychiatry, to understand how healthy aging and its interaction with disease affects older patients. With a new grant announced June 7 by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, Dr. Richard Besdine and colleagues at the Brown University School of Public Health and Alpert Medical School will teach hundreds of residents and practicing physicians, such as hospitalists, about aging so they can further improve care.
Beginning July 1, the $1 million, four-year grant will fund the development and delivery of aging-related curricula for doctors at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital, two Lifespan teaching hospitals affiliated with the Warren Alpert Medical School.
The program will take advantage of existing "co-management" programs by geriatricians and specialists of orthopedics and surgery patients, and support recruitment and training of specialist physicians to become champions for promoting aging education among colleagues.
The project will also provide professional development for medical faculty.
In 2005, Besdine began a four-year project [http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2011/11/geriatrics], also funded by the Reynolds Foundation to thoroughly integrate aging throughout the curriculum of the Alpert Medical School to reach "every student, every course, every year."
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