We Know the Senior Population, Right?

When one hears the word seniors, oft time images arise in one’s mind of someone who is frail, bent over due to osteoporosis, listless and lethargic, confused and lacking in mobility. Not surprisingly, such assumptions and stereotypes affect how we see and treat seniors.

Recognizing this, Michelle Gibson, a professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, challenges her first-year medical students’ assumptions of seniors and geriatric medicine through the use of You Tube videos. According to Gibson, “All the videos are of “regular” seniors- not famous folk, by design. I will only show videos where seniors are treated like adults, with respect. (This means there are many news interviews I won’t use, sadly, because they often have a patronizing ‘yes dear’ tone to them that I can’t stand.)”

Below is one of the video Gibson uses in her class.

Click here to read Gibson’s article and watch some more of her videos.

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