5-minute Fellowships: Dr Grace Pearson – Innovating undergraduate geriatric medicine training
Dr Grace Pearson is the recipient of a Dunhill Medical Trust-funded PhD fellowship, and her work focuses on transforming undergraduate geriatrics education. She is a speciality doctor in geriatrics and a clinical lecturer in Ageing Education at Bristol Medical School and has held multiple national positions, including as a Junior representative on the British Geriatrics Society council. Hear Grace talk about what her fellowship has enabled her to achieve.
In her talk, Grace highlights that despite the rising ageing population, there is a shortage of consultant geriatricians in the UK. This, combined with widespread ageism, has led to challenges in providing quality care for older individuals. To tackle this problem, Grace is establishing a blueprint for best practices in undergraduate geriatrics education.
Her work so far has centred around innovating the geriatrics curriculum at Bristol Medical School, the Complex Medicine in Older People Programme (CMOP), as well as evaluating the impact of this curriculum. She found that CMOP changed students’ attitudes towards older people and their empathy levels, and increased their likelihood of considering a future career in geriatrics. Grace also led a survey of UK medical schools asking about their geriatric medicine curricula, the results of which led the British Geriatrics Society to update their recommended national curriculum.
Watch the recording
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Meet the speakers
Dr Grace Pearson
Grace is a graduate of Bristol Medical School and also holds a first class BSc(Hons) in Pathology & Microbiology. She has held multiple national positions, including within the British Geriatrics Society as a Junior representative on the BGS council.