Medical Students Initiative

Curriculum Integration

This component focuses on increasing geriatric-centered lectures and presentations into existing medical school courses in all four years of medical school. Currently, didactic material has been incorporated into the following UTHealth medical school courses:

• Introduction to Clinical Medicine
• Neuroscience  
• Reproductive Biology
• Physical Diagnosis  
• Fundamentals of Clinical Medicine
• Integrative Clinical Experience/PBL
• Transition to Residency 

 

Third Year Clerkship Rotation

The geriatric-palliative care clerkship rotation is a field training experience. It exposes students to actual encounters that encourage learning through experience. The priority focus will be teaching students to accurately perform a Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment. Through this experience, students will become responsive to the needs of the elderly patient as well as develop critical communication skills.

The clerkship rotation will take place at LBJ General Hospital and the Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Medical Center. LBJ Hospital is part of the Harris County Hospital District, the 4th largest hospital district in the U.S. Memorial Hermann Medical Center is part of the Memorial Health Care Systems, the largest hospital system in the state and the 9th largest nationwide. In addition, a private outpatient clinic and a house call program are supported through UT Physicians

Comprehensive Clinical Competency Exam

The Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine, in collaboration with the UTH Curriculum Office, is developing a comprehensive clinical competency examination (CCCE).  This form of student testing (Occurring in Year 03) goes beyond the objective structured clinical examination in that it assesses a range of clinical skills and reasoning (learning strategies, teamwork, time management, management of ambiguity and expert judgment).  The CCCE approximates as closely as possible the challenges faced by physicians in practice.  Each student is given a number of standardized patient problems over a period of time and evaluated on their performance.  

Fourth Year Elective

The TEXAS program is offering medical students a fourth year elective in geriatrics and palliative medicine.  This elective will allow students to more completely explore geriatrics and palliative medicine by increasing their experiential and learning opportunities with older patients.

Contact: For more information on the fourth year elective opportunity contact Monica Garcia at Monica.A.Garcia@uth.tmc.edu

 

Virtual Patient Encounter

This virtual learning experience based on the AAMC competencies is designed to enhance medical students’ knowledge and skills in the care of older adults. The web-based learning environment provides students the unique opportunity to establish an ongoing relationship with a patient exposing students to the importance of continuity of patient care. As students move through their medical school education, the patient they are responsible for ages; requiring more complex care.

The virtual encounters developed within Second Life allow students to explore approaches to the patient; observe and choose practice techniques associated with the comprehensive geriatric assessment, offer health promotion and patient counseling as well as contemplate complex ethical decisions regarding the care of the patient. Students are able to virtually diagnoses and treat their patient in a variety of settings including the emergency room, the clinic, the ACE unit, and even in the home.

These self-paced activities contains video and audio clips, spotlight activities, geriatric gems, self-checks and expert explanations. All directions and instructions are incorporated within the activities. Evaluative tools include pre and post quizzes, embedded multiple choice questioning, short answer and essay. The actions and choices the student makes are captured for formative evaluation was well as to provide student feedback. 

 

TEXAS Educational Site Dashboard

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the TEXAS program, a variety of evaluation approaches are incorporated. The major foci of the TEXAS program are the AAMC and ACGME competencies. The AAMC focus on content obtained while in medical school, where as the ACGME competencies are oriented to the resident level and beyond. The evaluation plan is designed to incorporate ongoing evaluation on multiple levels, addressing both program and learner objectives.

Use your UTHealth username and passcode to access the Medical Student Surveys