Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Background Europe’s population is ageing. Therefore, all medical students should receive basic geriatric medicine education. It is essential to gain insights into their perceived educational needs and attitudes towards geriatric medicine. Aims To explore: medical students’ perceived knowledge, relevance, and interest across key geriatric topics and skills; their aspirations to become a geriatrician and interest in geriatric medicine. Methods We analysed data from the multinational multilingual open online cross-sectional survey on educational needs by COST Action PROmoting GeRiAtric Medicine in countries where it is still eMergING (PROGRAMMING) 21122. Medical students were asked to rate their perceived knowledge, the relevance to their profession and their interest in further training in each of 33 geriatric topics or skills, from “very low” (scored as 1) to “very high” (scored as 5). They were also asked about their exposure to and attitudes towards geriatric medicine. Results 448 medical students-274 (61.2%) women, 238 (53.1%) studying in EU-27 countries- completed the survey. Students’ mean (standard deviation, SD) perceived knowledge was highest in bone health (3.53, 0.86), depression (3.17, 0.93), and falls and mobility (3.16, 0.94), while lowest in gerodontology (2.14, 1.06), geriatric rehabilitation (2.45, 0.95), and orthogeriatrics (2.54, 0.99). 312 (69.7%) students reported exposure to geriatric medicine through specific courses and 257 (57.4%) through rotations in acute hospital wards. 30 (7%) students wanted to become geriatricians, while 147 (32.8%) students expressed high or very high enjoyment in engaging with older people. Conclusion Medical students reported limited knowledge in several key geriatric medicine topics and skills and relatively low interest in careers in geriatric medicine. In many cases learning experiences were limited to traditional lecture-based teaching and ward-based rotations. Active learning approaches such as case-based and problem-based learning were preferred.</p>