Senior Mentor Program Dispels The Common Myths About Growing Older

(Left to right) Jan and Tom Ayers discuss the results of a health questionnaire with second-year medical student Ashley Pollock.

When Pollock makes one-hour visits with the Ayers several times a year, she’s actually satisfying requirements for her curriculum. Through the University of South Carolina School of Medicine/Palmetto Health Senior Mentor Program, each first year medical student (most in pairs and some individually like Pollock) is matched with a husband and wife or individual senior citizen. Through structured educational modules, students complete assignments each time they meet with their volunteer mentors, who are 65 years of age or older. Assignments can range from taking a medical history to preparing an analysis of a mentor’s medications to conducting a frank discussion on advance directives.

Originally implemented with American Association of Medical Colleges/John A. Hartford Foundation grant funding in 2000, the Senior Mentor Program was established to provide medical students with a long-term experience with older adults and to help reduce stereotypes on aging. Though other medical schools have developed similar programs, USC’s is unique in that the student/mentor relationship extends through the entire four years of school. “By going into a home environment and experiencing how their mentors live, the students are seeing what we hope medicine to be – more holistic,” said Ellen Roberts, Ph.D., Associate Director of Geriatric Medical Education and facilitator of the Senior Mentor Program. She added, “Instead of just seeing a patient and learning about their symptoms, they are getting a whole view of a person. This gives them a much better picture of how to take care of an individual.”

Caring For South Carolina’s Elderly

To Dr. Paul Eleazer, the Senior Mentor Program takes an important step in addressing the health care needs of a rapidly increasing population of senior citizens in South Carolina. An associate professor of internal medicine, Dr. Eleazer is also Director of the Division of Geriatrics and was the principal investigator on the grant that originally funded the program. With fewer than three dozen geriatricians in South Carolina, the job of caring for the elderly in a popular retirement state will fall on family practitioners and internists. “Many people are simply not interested in taking care of older people. My hope is that with a positive experience the students will want to take care of older people and will be more attentive to their needs,” he said.

Pollock has found her experience with the Ayers to be one that has continued to improve over the course of a year. “It’s like any relationship. The more time you spend with someone, the more relaxed and open you are,” she said. As Pollock asks the couple to report back on health care goals they had set for themselves, the three chat comfortably, obviously quite at ease with each other. “She’s like an old friend,” Tom said, quickly amending his observation to, “she’s really like one of our own grandchildren.”

Program Popular With Seniors

The Ayers learned about the Senior Mentor Program from a 98-year-old friend in their retirement community in Northeast Columbia. In fact, a total of seven senior citizens from Wildewood Downs are volunteer mentors, and word-of-mouth has promoted the program so much that at times there is a waiting list for interested seniors. “A bonding developed between the mentors and their students that we couldn’t have predicted,” said Joshua Thornhill, M.D., Assistant Dean for Clinical Curriculum, who serves as the program’s course director with Nancy Richeson, M.D., Assistant Dean for Clinical Assessment.

As Pollock and the Ayers cement the bond they’ve created, the couple hears about the grueling demands in the second year of medical school, while Pollock learns how retirement means having more time at their disposal, but not having the agility they possessed in their youth. “I used to love getting out in the garden, but if I get down now I can’t get up,” laughed Jan. While all three are thoroughly sold on the program, Pollock is particularly pleased that it’s structured to last through her entire four years of medical school. “It allows the Ayers to follow me all the way through, and makes it appropriate to invite them to events like our white coat ceremony,” she said.

When Pollock proudly accepted her lab coat as a symbol that she was progressing from the classroom to a clinical component of her education, the Ayers were there to share that milestone. When she celebrates another momentous day in December, again dressed in white, the Ayers wouldn’t dream of missing the occasion as a future physician and radiant bride walks down the aisle.

Reprinted from Connections newsletter, April 2003

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