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Clinical Training

Fellows spend their clinical months rotating through inpatient and outpatient experiences in a variety of settings. Specifically, the Fellows take six weeks of home call for UNC Geriatrics outpatient clinic, Parkview Health and Rehabilitation, and the Continuing Care Retirement Communities covered by the Division of Geriatric Medicine. For additional information, please see clinical rotations and clinical sites.

Didactics

UNC Hospitals Hillsborough Campus
UNC Hospitals Hillsborough Campus

Friday morning is an academic half-day for the Geriatric Fellows. Firstly, the Geriatric Division Meeting begins at 8 A.M, and includes a variety of administrative meetings, guest lectures from visiting faculty, clinical and research updates from our Division Faculty, and Journal Club presentations from our fellows. Secondly, after Division meeting, fellows receive lectures from faculty members in the Division of Geriatrics and other Departments in the School of Medicine from 9-11 A.M.

At the beginning of the year, these lectures introduce fellows to core topics like the comprehensive geriatric assessment, the science of aging, and geriatric syndromes. Also, in the second half of the year, fellows use the second hour of didactics to discuss clinical cases, journal articles, and to prepare for boards. Guest lecturers from other Departments in the School of Medicine as well as the other Allied Health Schools at UNC give lectures on topics such as:

  • neuropsychiatric testing
  • evaluation of hoarseness
  • movement disorders
  • oral health in the elderly
  • polypharmacy and deprescribing
  • cardiovascular disease in older adults

Education Training

Some of our Geriatric Inpatient Hospital Specialty Service providers at Hillsborough Campus
Some of our Inpatient Geriatrics Service providers at UNC Hospitals Hillsborough Campus

In addition to high-quality clinical training, the geriatrics curriculum prepares fellows to be clinical educators through a series of didactics in topics such as educational theory, curriculum design, building an educational portfolio and academic curriculum vitae, and learner assessment methods.

In addition, fellows have numerous teaching opportunities throughout the year, including:

  • didactic sessions for residents and students on the Inpatient Geriatrics Service
  • teaching medical students their falls curriculum in small group sessions
  • demonstrating gait assessment for students on the outpatient medicine clerkship
  • giving Grand Rounds at local AHEC sites

Additionally, fellows are encouraged to have educational faculty members observe their teaching sessions throughout the year for additional feedback.

Research Training

During their orientation month, Fellows begin a geriatrics curriculum in quality improvement. They then design a quality improvement project to implement together during their fellowship year. Throughout the year, they have regular meetings with mentors about their project. Recent projects include improving:

  • MOST form completion among long-term residents in a CCRC Health Center
  • the quality of discharge summaries from the Inpatient Geriatrics Service
  • mobilization of patients admitted to the inpatient geriatrics service

Furthermore, these projects have led to multiple poster presentations at AGS as well as a publication in JAGS.