GrandMentor: Feasibility of a literacy intergenerational program over free online videoconferencing

Introduction: Medical students are required to have psychiatry as part of their clinical clerkships, with the recommendation that the rotation be for at least 6 weeks. This is due to the prevalence of psychiatric disorders and the associated morbidity and mortality. Traditionally, medical students have received most of their psychiatric experience on inpatient psychiatric units; however there has been a shift towards making the rotation more relevant to students proceeding to nonpsychiatric careers. This change has resulted in diversification of the sites for clinical clerkships. In recent times, students have been exposed to outpatient, addiction and consultative psychiatry as part of their clinical clerkship. Medical students, however, often have limited exposure to consultationliaison psychiatry during their clinical rotations due to time constraints. The ConsultationLiaison (C-L) Psychiatry service is also often a busy one in many hospitals, with the likelihood of limited ability to provide adequate teaching to the students by residents and attending physicians. However, the C-L service also provides a rich opportunity to educate medical students about key geriatric psychiatry issues such as delirium, dementia and capacity. In order to take advantage of the educational opportunities provided, alternative instructional methods using media and technology might serve to compensate for limitations of teaching availability. The goal of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of media and technology in providing instruction to medical students as compared to traditional formal instruction on geriatric mental health issues that usually occurs during a clinical rotation. Methods: The study compared two groups of medical students, consisting of seven students each, at a University affiliated VA medical center. One group received traditional formal lectures and the other received mixed media materials (including video and internet sources). Students were assessed by a pre and post test of their clinical knowledge during their one week C-L psychiatry clinical rotation. Results: Results obtained will be compared to assess whether students receiving media instruction have the same clinical knowledge regarding mental health and aging at the end of the rotation as those receiving the traditional methods. Conclusions: If so, results may suggest that media instruction can substitute effectively for formal clinical teaching during a short clinical rotation, in hopes of incorporating more media instruction in clinical rotations to improve medical student exposure and knowledge base regarding mental health and aging.