VCU School of Medicine receives $1.8 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation

By Joe Kuttenkuler

RICHMOND, Va. – Benefiting from one of the largest grant initiatives ever offered for geriatric education, Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Medicine has been awarded a four-year, $1.8 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation to enhance geriatric medical instruction.

VCU is one of only 10 schools in the nation to receive a share of the $20 million Reynolds funding. Sixty-four institutions applied for the grant. The VCU grant also will benefit the Geriatrics Section at the McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center, which is closely affiliated with the VCU School of Medicine and a partner in the project.

The funding, which VCU will match by half for a total of $2.7 million, will finance a number of new positions, enable development of new interactive curricula and increase the number of required hours medical students and residents spend on gerontology subjects.

"This will make it possible for our medical school to build a cohesive curriculum for geriatric education," said Peter A. Boling, M.D., director of the Geriatrics Section in VCU’s School of Medicine on the MCV Campus. "It will enable us to take a quantum leap forward."

Under the terms of the grant, all medical students will be exposed to up to 60 hours of new instruction in gerontology during their four years of training. Students also will work closely with the medical school’s Computer Based Instruction Laboratory, where they will work with a variety of interactive, fictional case studies and Web-based resources.

Residents in internal medicine will receive 20 to 30 additional hours in geriatric instruction each year through seminars and a Web-based learning curriculum. An additional two-week rotation through a newly created Geriatric Consult Service will expose residents to a number of different specialties in the hospital. The residency Website also will be expanded to include modules on common geriatric problems. Residents from other specialties, including psychiatry, neurology, orthopedics, surgery and emergency medicine, will receive up to 12 hours each year from a new core curriculum that will include an interactive CD series.

The grant also will expand continuing-education opportunities for School of Medicine faculty and Virginia’s community physicians.

"The best way to learn is to teach," Boling said. "By working with our community physicians, we hope to make them even better practitioners of geriatric medicine while at the same time making them better teachers for our students."

Seminars on teaching geriatrics will be given to 50 basic science faculty, 50 clinical instructional faculty and 75 community physicians who mentor primary care students.

According to Boling, instruction through advanced informatics was a core piece in VCU’s grant proposal. A Geriatric Quick Consult Website will be created to provide immediate answers and practical advice on common problems to VCU Health System physicians. In addition, graphics and 200 hours of audio, video from geriatric seminars will be posted on a new distance learning Website for community physicians.

Boling, who received the American Geriatric Society’s Nascher-Manning award last May for advancing clinical geriatrics, says improving training for today’s physicians will mean better care for tomorrow’s growing geriatric population. "The older population has many unique needs when it comes to health care, and geriatrics tends to cross many disciplines," said Boling. "It’s vitally important that all medical personnel be able to bring to bear the knowledge to treat these patients."

Other institutions that will receive funding from the Reynolds Foundation for geriatric education include Yale University in New Haven, Conn.; Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.; and the University of Rochester in New York.

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Reynolds was the founder and principal owner of the Donrey Media Group, a nationwide communications / media company. Headquartered in Las Vegas, it is one of the largest private foundations in the United States.

VCU’s School of Medicine enrolls 172 students each year and is one of 125 fully accredited medical schools in the country.