Education in geriatrics: a required curriculum for medical students

The mandatory geriatrics and gerontology curriculum at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York includes two modules for first- and second-year students and a four-week block experience for fourth-year students. The first-year curriculum emphasizes socioeconomic, psychosocial, biomedical, and attitudinal issues. The second-year experience serves as an introduction to clinical geriatrics. The fourth-year clerkship allows students to further develop their fund of geriatric knowledge, learn specific geriatric skills, and build on their internal medicine foundation, integrating new knowledge and skills and developing into comprehensive practitioners who can apply the team approach to address all the medical, functional, psychosocial, and ethical aspects of caring for the elderly.