Background: To prepare the medical workforce for our ageing populations we must promote teaching on ageing and geriatric medicine in undergraduate medical curricula. We present results of the British Geriatrics Society national curriculum survey (2021-22), and our plan to link these to national data from the UK Medical Education Database (UKMED) to test for an association between the quantity and quality of undergraduate education in geriatric medicine and postgraduate recruitment to specialty.
Methods: All UK medical schools were invited to participate in a survey on content, methodology, timing, and duration of teaching in ageing and geriatric medicine. These results will be used to generate an ‘index of quality’ for teaching in geriatrics, which will be linked to UKMED data in regression modelling.
Results: 30/35 of UK medical schools responded (83%). Most teaching occurred in the fourth year of study (21/30, 70%). All schools (n=30) taught at least one topic related to geriatrics. The majority (15/30, 50%) reported a discrete module for geriatric medicine lasting 4-8 weeks, an increase on previous surveys[1,2]. Notably, three schools reported geriatric medicine exposure lasting >12 weeks. Of these, two were integrated clerkships and one a dedicated geriatric medicine module. There is increasing focus on multidisciplinary education, with emphasis on combining virtual or simulated teaching with other healthcare professions (n=7).
Conclusion: Undergraduate exposure to geriatric medicine in the UK has increased compared to previous surveys[1,2]. Future research will evaluate whether the index of quality for undergraduate geriatric medicine education predicts recruitment to postgraduate geriatric medicine training.