Education
Continuing Education
Certificate Programs Offered through Houston Geriatric Education Center
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Baby Boomer Imperative: Working Together to Care for the Aging Population |
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Principles of Geriatric Care: A Certificate Program for Health Care Professionals |
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Certificate of Excellence in Geriatrics: Preparing our Future Health Care Workforce for the Aging Boom |
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Geriatric Resource Nurse/Case Manager Course - Continuing Education Program Offered by UTHealth School of Nursing
The UTHealth Geriatric Resource Nurse/Case Manager course is a 24-hour continuing education program offered one Thursday per month for four months. The next program begins March 29, 2012. The program is targeted towards nurses and case managers working in, or interested in working in, acute care hospitals, long-term care settings, home health agencies, hospice organizations, or assisted living facilities providing care for older adults. 24 contact hours of nursing continuing education are offered for program completion. To register, please visit http://giving.uthouston.org/UTH_SON_ONLINE_CE.
Houston Geriatric Education Center
The Houston Geriatric Education Center (H-GEC) is funded by a grant from HRSA (Health Resources and Services Administration) of the Department of Health and Human Services. The grant was initially funded in 2007 with renewed funding for five years beginning in 2010. The H-GEC has established a collaborative partnership in geriatric education and training with faculty in the UTHealth Schools (Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, Public Health, and Biomedical Informatics) and in the neighboring Schools of Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy at Texas Woman's University and the Schools of Pharmacy and Social Work at the University of Houston. The interdisciplinary faculty designs and develops curriculum and educates healthcare students, providers, and faculty and community service providers, such as adult protection staff, local police and sheriff departments, financial planners, elder law attorneys, and voluntary ombudsmen, on the care of vulnerable elders. Topics include:
- Basic care of frail elders
- Memory issues
- Dementia
- Mental health and behavior management
- Caregiver issues
- Oral health
- Medical management
- Ethics
- Elder abuse and mistreatment
- Disaster preparedness
- Cultural competence
- Health literacy
The renewed H-GEC offers:
- A certificate program in geriatrics for interdisciplinary healthcare providers
- A faculty development course for faculty teaching in healthcare programs in community colleges
- Education and training in palliative and end of life care for teams of interdisciplinary healthcare providers in acute care settings
- Short courses and training for healthcare providers, students and faculty and community service providers
- An annual student competition in which interdisciplinary teams of students from nine different healthcare disciplines assess a group of frail elders in a community setting and present their observations and recommendations to a live audience.
The H-GEC disseminates the curricula it has developed since 2007 to other organizations, including other GECs within Texas, the American Medical Association for online continuing education of physicians, and the Department of Justice. The H-GEC is also committed to increasing the number of program learners from minority or underserved groups so that healthcare professionals are better able to serve our diverse population of elders.
Principal investigators of the grant are Carmel Dyer, MD and Sharon Ostwald, PhD.
T.E.X.A.S. Training Excellence in Aging Studies
The Training Excellence in Aging Studies (TEXAS) is a comprehensive program designed to strengthen and promote geriatric education for medical students, faculty, and practicing physicians and, ultimately, to create an environment of excellence in geriatric care at UTHealth and throughout the community. TEXAS applies a competency based approach to foster knowledge and skill acquisition at student, resident, faculty and practicing physician levels so that outcomes are realized on organizational as well as individual levels.
The TEXAS program is funded by a four year grant from the D. W. Reynolds Foundation (DWRF) and generous contributions from the late Roy Huffington, Huffington Endowed Lecture Series, Othello “Bud” and Nelwyn Hare, Memorial Hermann Foundation, Harris County Hospital District, and the Office of the Dean at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston.
The TEXAS initiatives include:
- Organizing and integrating geriatric content into the existing medical school curriculum using the Vanderbilt University Knowledge Map.
- Developing a 3-D virtual world whereby medical students benefit from the advances in computer technology by interaction with “virtual” patients through their avatar, or virtual self.
- Creating interactive email “sound bytes” and case studies for resident physicians whereby they receive brief and entertaining tidbits of geriatric information followed by case studies and team competitions.
- Providing hospitalists, non-geriatric physicians and geriatricians with training on how to teach geriatrics at the bedside by offering the Curriculum for Hospitalized Aging Medical Patients (CHAMPS) program developed by the University of Chicago.
- Inviting renowned experts in geriatrics from across the nation to give intensive 1.5 day workshops and technical assistance for UTHealth medical students, residents, fellows, faculty, and community physicians.
Grant funding began in 2009. Dr. Carmel Dyer is the principal investigator.
Medical School Programs in Geriatrics
Clinical Fellowship - A one-year clinical fellowship for residents in Internal Medicine or Family Practice who wish to become geriatricians
Residency Program – Internal Medicine and Family Practice residents rotate through the Geriatrics Consultation Services at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center and LBJ Community Hospital. They may also choose a consult/subspecialty elective in geriatrics.
Medical Students – Third and fourth year medical students experience Geriatrics as part of their Internal Medicine clerkships. Medical students may do a scholarly concentration in geriatrics throughout their four years of their training or may choose to take a geriatrics Blue Book elective, an optional short course designed to enrich and enhance the medical student’s core curriculum experience.
School of Nursing
The UTHealth School of Nursing offers Master of Science in Nursing and Post-Master’s Gerontological Nursing programs that prepare graduates to be specialists in the multidimensional care of older adults.
