Expanded Training for Residents through the UC/Health Alliance Reynolds Physician Geriatrics Training Center

Four primary care residency programs are participating in the training program:

The University Hospital Internal Medicine, the Jewish Hospital (JH) Internal Medicine, and the Christ Hospital Internal Medicine residency programs, and the UC/Christ Hospital Family Medicine training program.

Four other specialty residency programs are also participating in the project:

The UC Gynecology, Psychiatry, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, and the UC Emergency Medicine residency programs. 

Each of these training programs are developing new curriculum to better train young physicians in the care of older adults. In addition, these programs’ residents are participating in a new interdisciplinary training experience, Longitudinal Encounters with a Standardized Patient (LEADS).

Under the leadership of Tim Lewis, MD (UC internal medicine) the project faculty implemented LEADS, a new curriculum addressing competency development and assessment in dementia and chronic disease management among interdisciplinary groups of residents.  The curriculum’s centerpiece is an unfolding 3-part standardized patient (SP) case about a patient with Alzheimer’s disease and her daughter and soon-to-be caregiver.  The SP encounters are videotaped to give trainees an opportunity to improve their clinical and communication skills.  During three longitudinal encounters with the SP and her daughter, the learners witness 10 years of disease progression, including its impact on the caregiver.