Proposed minimum contents for medical school programs in geriatric medicine in Latin America

Abstract

In the developing countries of the world, an aging of the population in general is occurring at the same time that the life expectancy of older adults is increasing. The results of this double aging process are especially striking for health care services because of the concurrent epidemiologic transition, which has led to infectious diseases being replaced by noninfectious, habitually chronic diseases that occur predominantly in older age. In these circumstances, older adults begin to predominate among the patients whom physicians in Latin America now serve and in the near future, older adults will constitute the immense majority of those patients. To respond to this situation, the training of professionals responsible for providing care to older adults should be improved, and the preparation of specialists in geriatric medicine should be enhanced both quantitatively and qualitatively. Future doctors should have the knowledge, abilities, and attitudes to enable them to appropriately serve this population segment. With these aims in mind, structures and procedures should be established that make it possible to impart the specific contents of geriatric medicine during medical school not only as a part of the traditional vertical teaching of the core curriculum of geriatric medicine, but also through the horizontal teaching of some of the material in other subjects. This article discusses why, with what objectives, with what contents, with what procedures, and with what staffing and materials the training of professionals in geriatric medicine should be carried out, and why it is time to give priority to this undertaking. Putting into place the measures proposed in this article should facilitate the incorporation of this subject-matter into the curricula of the medical schools of Latin America.