Background: Although the number of older patients is increasing
in almost all medical specialties, the interest of
medical students in geriatrics as a career is still low. Because
quality of medical education and educators strongly influences
student career decisions, it is important to develop
curricula that motivate students to become self-directed,
lifelong learners in the field of geriatric medicine. Objectives:
We evaluated training aspects in terms of time, core
content of teaching goals, and quality of undergraduate geriatric
education in medical schools in Austria and Germany.
Methods: A standardized paper questionnaire was sent to all
36 German and 4 Austrian medical faculties to evaluate
quantitative aspects, content, and quality of pregraduate
medical education in geriatrics. Results were compared to
the recommendations of the Geriatric Medicine Section of
the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS). Results:
A total of 33/36 (92 of the German medical faculties) and 4/4
(100 of the Austrian medical faculties) responded to the
questionnaire. In most of the faculties, geriatric medicine
was taught as an independent discipline in the core curriculum,
with learning objectives absent in almost one third of the faculties. A medical student’s first contact with geriatric
medicine occurred on average during the second clinical
year (median 8th semester). Although the content of geriatric
curricula strongly varied among the faculties, core knowledge
as recommended by the UEMS was integrated into
most of the curricula. Teaching strategies regarding the development
of attitudes and skills also recommended by the
UEMS were identified in the curriculum of only some faculties.
Conclusions: Geriatrics seems to be an established subject
in most German and Austrian faculties. However, the
current data clearly indicate highly variable quality in geriatric
pregraduate training at German and Austrian universities.
Because curricula should prepare young people using competence-
based training and assessment methods, room for
improvement remains not only in terms of structure, but also
regarding quality of training to develop self-directed lifelong
learners