[Internship 'Care of the elderly' should be obligatory in all medical schools]

This internship in care of the elderly should become an obligatory course at all 8 medical schools in the Netherlands. The most important reasons for making it obligatory are increased aging of the population and the current lack of knowledge and skills that leads to insufficient quality and safety of healthcare for the frail elderly. In this article we describe the possible structure of such an internship in care of the elderly, based on the experiences at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre. The result of this training is that knowledge, skills and attitude in care of the elderly improved significantly. We argue that, just as all medical students are trained in paediatrics, so should all Dutch curricula for the initial medical training include an obligatory training in medicine for the aged.