What do junior doctors at a busy metropolitan teaching hospital want to learn about geriatric medicine and how during their internship year?

![CDATA[Aims: To gain an understanding of what interns would have liked to have learned in the field of geriatric medicine, and how they would like to learn during their internship year. Methods: All 32 interns at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney were invited to participate in the research study. 22 interns consented and undertook a 30-minute semi-structured interview with a single interviewer. Interns were asked to consider three experiences prior to the interview that they had through their internship year which had educational significance for them. These significant events were explored and a further final unstructured discussion on any other educational topics completed the interview. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded using an open axial approach by a single researcher. Themes related to geriatric medicine were analysed for the results. Ethical approval was granted by the parent institution & University. Results: A total of seven interns highlighted educational experiences related to geriatric medicine. Interns highlighted that important areas to cover during a geriatric term include: learning about the multi-disciplinary team (50%), an initial orientation to the practice of geriatric medicine (41%), prescribing sedatives, antipsychotic & analgesic medications (32%), and effective palliative care including the holistic aspects of care (27%). The learning methods interns described as potentially beneficial included: structured and unstructured reflective practice (100%) and learning to be proactive in the working environment for their own education (86%). Poor senior support of interns was identified as potentially limiting their learning opportunities (50%); this was particularly the case in rural locations. Conclusions: This study analyses an area not studied in the literature. There are methodological limitations, including the use of a single researcher for interviewing and coding, which limits reliability of the study. With this qualitative study, we were able to identify themes that are worth considering for local geriatric intern education development.]]