Osteopathic Medical Schools Receive Multi-Million-Dollar Reynolds Grants

Two members of the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine today were named the first osteopathic medical colleges ever to receive prestigious Donald W. Reynolds Foundation grants for Comprehensive Programs to Strengthen the Training in Geriatrics of Medical Students, Residents and/or Practicing Physicians. This year, 11 U.S. colleges of osteopathic medicine competed in the grants selection process against the more than 125 U.S. MD-granting medical colleges. In previous years, the program was not open to osteopathic medical colleges.

The University of North Texas Health Science Center/Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine UNTHSC/TCOM will receive $2 million over four years from the Reynolds Foundation to develop and implement an innovative and sustainable program to strengthen physicians’ training in geriatrics. The program, the Reynolds GET-IT (Geriatrics Education and Training – In Texas) will focus on the biomedical aspects of aging, geriatric assessment and care coordination, particularly for older adults with cognitive impairments and frailty and in palliative and end-of-life geriatric care. GET-IT will integrate geriatrics into the college’s innovative, application-oriented curriculum, which employs an artificial intelligence instrument that assesses students in developing competency through practice. The program will be facilitated by the Oversight Network (ON), which comprises key UNTHC academic and clinical leadership, partnering postgraduate institution faculty members and philanthropic representatives. The ON will provide input for the development, implementation and evaluation of the GET-IT program. The program’s goal is to have broad impact through the geriatrics training of approximately 2,800 osteopathic medical students, 800 postgraduate residents, 50 faculty and 20,000 practicing physicians over the grant’s four-year period.

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey School of Osteopathic Medicine (UMDNJ-SOM) also will receive $2 million over four years for its project, Geriatric Infusion: Preparing Physicians of the 21^st Century to Care for Our Elderly. The project will build on UMDNJ-SOM’s already significant work in geriatric medical education. UMDNJ-SOM is one of a handful of schools nationally whose curriculum includes mandatory, formal training in geriatrics/gerontology. In addition, the school provides a variety of clinical and biomedical aging research opportunities. The new project will infuse geriatrics throughout all four years of the medical school curriculum, incorporating new curricular content, competency-based evaluation and implementation of Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs). The project also will address gaps in geriatrics in the school’s psychiatry clinical residency experience and in the emergency medicine residency. The goal is to address physician workforce issues in high impact areas that affect the elderly.

The American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) was founded in 1898 to support and assist the nation's osteopathic medical schools, and to serve as a unifying voice for osteopathic medical education. AACOM’s mission is to promote excellence in osteopathic medical education, in research and in service, and to foster innovation and quality among osteopathic colleges to improve the health of the American public.

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