Attending a national meeting recently gave seven College of Medicine students a way to interact with professionals in geriatrics—an area they had explored earlier through a career training program known as MSTAR.
Last month, one first-year and six second-year College of Medicine students traveled to Orlando, Florida, for the American Geriatrics Society 2018 Annual Scientific Meeting. At the conference, held May 3-5, most of the students presented research they had conducted as part of the Medical Students Training in Aging Research (MSTAR) program the previous summer. Second-year College of Medicine student Abhijit Das presented a case study on a geriatric patient.
The MSTAR program, sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), encourages medical students to consider careers in academic geriatrics by awarding short-term scholarships. NEOMED’s Geriatric Interest Group pairs members with geriatrician mentors in the community to learn more about the specialty through the MSTAR national fellowship.
For second-year College of Medicine student Kush Patel, attending the conference confirmed his interest in geriatrics and delivered inspiration.
"The American Geriatrics Society conference was a great way to get connected to practicing geriatricians and researchers from across the country. It gave me the opportunity to learn a lot about different aspects of geriatrics, such as different approaches to use when talking to geriatric patients. The conference also allowed me to get away from studying for a bit, which was a plus," said Patel.
Caring for an older generation
“The MSTAR program gave me an amazing opportunity to explore areas of medicine I hadn’t had the chance to experience, and to form meaningful relationships with mentors and other medical students,” said second-year College of Medicine student Siri Yalamanchili.
Palak Patadia, a second-year College of Medicine student who participated in the MSTAR program, said, “The geriatrics population is an integral part of almost every specialty in medicine. And so it is equally important to understand the challenges they face in their everyday life and in the healthcare system. Each of us who participated in MSTAR had the opportunity to learn more via didactic lectures, our research, and shadowing physicians at our sites.
“Almost a year later, it all came full circle, when many of us went down to Orlando for the American Geriatrics Society Conference and presented the research we had done. We got to share what we had learned with others.”
Pictured in feature photo from left to right: Austin Hilt, Siri Yalamanchili, Kanithra Sekaran, Palak Patadia, Shivani Shah and Abhijit Das. (Kush Patel attended but is not pictured.)