ArticleEuropean geriatric medicine2021
What is meant by "frailty" in undergraduate medical education? A national survey of UK medical schools.
Article in European geriatric medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- What are we teaching UK medical students about ageing and geriatric medicine? Results of the third British Geriatrics Society national curriculum and teaching survey.Age and ageing · 2025Article
- Addressing multiple long-term conditions in the undergraduate medical school curriculum: a focus group study.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- 'Focus on Frailty': Co-Designing Digital Frailty Education with Healthcare Students.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2025Article
- Teaching Frailty to Medical Residents: A Needs Assessment Among Geriatrics Faculty.The Journal of frailty & aging · 2024Article
- Updating the British Geriatrics Society recommended undergraduate curriculum in geriatric medicine: a curriculum mapping and nominal group technique study.Age and ageing · 2023Article
- A scoping review of the changing landscape of geriatric medicine in undergraduate medical education: curricula, topics and teaching methods.European geriatric medicine · 2022Article
- Medical School Education on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeAll UK medical schools are required to include frailty in their curriculum. The term is open to interpretation and associated with negative perceptions. Understanding and recognising frailty is a prerequisite for consideration of frailty in the treatment decision-making process across clinical specialities. The aim of this survey was to describe how frailty has been interpreted and approached in UK undergraduate medical education and provide examples of educational strategies employed.
methodsAll UK medical schools were invited to complete an electronic survey. Schools described educational strategies used to teach and assess frailty and provided frailty-related learning outcomes. Learning Outcomes were grouped into categories and mapped to the domains of Outcomes for Graduates (knowledge, skills and values).
results25/34 Medical schools (74%) participated. The interpretation of what frailty is vary widely and the diversity of teaching strategies reflect this. The most common Learning outcomes included as "Frailty" are about the concept of frailty, Comprehensive Geriatric Assessments and Roles of the MDT. Frailty teaching is predominantly opportunistic and occurred within geriatric medicine rotations in all medical schools. Assessments focus on frailty syndromes such as falls and delirium.
conclusionThere is variation regarding how frailty has been interpreted and approached by medical schools. Frailty is represented in an array of teaching and assessment methods, with a lack of constructive alignment to related learning outcomes. Consensus should be agreed as to what frailty means in medical education. Further research is required to explore which frailty-specific educational strategies in undergraduate medical education enhance learning.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.