ABSTRACT
Students get fragmented education in geriatric medicine through isolated lectures in courses as abnormal human biology and neuroscience. Ideally, the medical school would have a full-time geriatrician who could integrate geriatrics into the medical school education and orient students to this specialized area of knowledge. It is most regrettable that the medical school does not have a full-time geriatrician. Most medical practitioners feel they are at least part-time geriatricians simply because so many of their patients are 65 or older. A medical student discovered that year he could get a small grant to follow a patient with Alzheimer’s disease. The student met with the patient’s family once or twice a week and became like an adopted son to them. The student then met with his mentor about once a month and was able to share insights that practicing physicians usually cannot see because of the normal brevity of contact between doctors and patient.
