Faculty Bibliography

Opportunities for professional development and mentorship are vital for junior and mid-level faculty members to succeed in academic medicine. Too often, those opportunities are of short supply at institutions. In this special 2-hour, interactive workshop affiliated with the Teaching and Training Committee, learners will be exposed to several areas of professional development. Dr. Brandon Yarns and Dr. Alessandra Scalmati will build on their presentations from last year and discuss implementation and evaluation of a freshly developed curricula, focusing on choosing appropriate educational strategies and describing various designs for assessment and evaluation. Finally, barriers to introducing new curricula and tips about dissemination of the curricula will be discussed. Learners will also have a chance to practice what they learned. Dr. Dennis Popeo and Dr. Elizabeth (EJ) Santos will discuss helpful hints for junior faculty members. Dr. Popeo will specifically discuss things that he "wished he knew way back when" about career planning, negotiation and work-life balance. Dr. Santos will discuss networking - something that unnerves many people - and graceful self-promotion.

When an adult is thought to be making poor decisions or is unable to care for him or herself, many people assume that a guardianship is necessary to secure that person's well being. An older adult may require a guardian because of a new inability to care for themselves in the contest of a neurocognitive disorder, or after a lifetime of chronic mental illness, and self-neglect. The appointment of a guardian by the court can be lifesaving, provide much needed financial protection from exploitation, and guarantee stable housing and access to health care. However, a guardianship may also leave older adults vulnerable to abuse and financial exploitation. In many cases, the needs of older adults are layered and complex, and guardianship is not necessarily the best remedy, especially when the court-appointed guardians may be responsible for hundreds of clients.

Background/UNASSIGNED:Despite evidence that biological and genetic factors contribute strongly to obesity, many healthcare providers still attribute obesity more to controllable behavioral issues rather than factors outside a person's control. We evaluated whether medical school students' beliefs about obesity correlate with ability to effectively counsel patients with obesity. Methods/UNASSIGNED:Clerkship-year medical students at NYU School of Medicine completed an Objective Structured Clinical Experience (OSCE) that tests ability to effectively counsel standardized actor-patients with obesity. We surveyed these students to evaluate their beliefs about the causes of obesity and their attitudes towards people with obesity. We analyzed correlations between student beliefs, negative obesity attitudes, and OSCE performance. Results/UNASSIGNED: < 0.05). Conclusions/UNASSIGNED:Attribution of obesity to external factors correlated with greater ability to counsel patients with obesity, suggesting that educating providers on the biological causes of obesity could help reduce bias and improve provider care.

America is aging as the population of older adults increases. The shortage of geriatric mental health specialists means that most geriatric mental healthcare will be provided by physicians who do not have specialty training in geriatrics. The Institute of Medicine Report of 2012 highlighted the urgent need for development of national competencies and curricula in geriatric mental health for all clinicians. Virtually all physicians can expect to treat older patients with mental health symptoms, yet currently there are no widely accepted learning objectives in geriatric mental health specific for medical students. The authors describe the development of a set of such learning objectives that all medical students should achieve by graduation. The iterative process included initial drafting by content experts from five medical schools with input and feedback from a wider group of geriatric psychiatrists, geriatricians, internists, and medical educators. The final document builds upon previously published work and includes specific knowledge, attitudes and skills in six key domains: Normal Aging, Mental Health Assessment of the Geriatric Patient, Psychopharmacology, Delirium, Depression, and Dementia. These objectives address a pressing need, providing a framework for national standards and curriculum development.