Humanistic geriatric health care: an innovation in medical education

A geriatric health maintenance program, started in 1976 as a community medicine elective, has developed into an innovative model in humanistic health care. Junior and senior medical students act as live-in facilitators of comprehensive health care for the elderly tenants in publicly subsidized housing units. Students rotate emergency night and weekend calls and hold weekly health clinics at the housing units. Weekly seminars are given by faculty members during which case presentations by students and topics related to the complex problems of the elderly are discussed. Important aspects of this elective are experiential learning in humanistic health care, exposure to ambulatory well or stable elderly people, development of communication/interpersonal skills, and acceptance of responsibility. The program has been received enthusiastically by tenants, community physicians, students, and an increasing number of faculty members at the University of Oregon Health Sciences Center School of Medicine.