First Year Medical Student Attitudes Toward the Elderly

Abstract

First year medical students entered school with essentially neutral attitudes towards the elderly in 1986 and 1994 as measured by an Aging Semantic Differential and the class of 1991 entered with significantly poorer attitudes. For all three classes, student's gender, previous exposure to a nursing home or undergraduate curriculum in geriatrics prior to medical school did not affect attitudes at entry into medical school, but older students and those having experience with the elderly had more positive attitudes. Despite growth of the older population and increased attention given to this group over the past decade, medical students' attitudes toward elders did not improve. Since care of the elderly will represent a significant proportion of the future practices of current trainees, and societal changes appear to have insignificant impact on student attitudes toward the elderly, medical schools need to become more proactive in developing curricula to improve such attitudes.

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