Geriatric For A Fortnight

For ten days this summer, Viki Johnson lived in a nursing home. Confined to a wheel chair, she was given sponge baths and had to wait for an aid to place her on the toilet. Unlike the other nursing home residents, Viki is in her twenties and perfectly healthy. She’s a second year medical student participating in the Learning By Living program at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine.

Each summer, a few medical students are given fake diagnoses and placed in nursing homes to see what it’s like to live as a resident. Viki Johnson joins us to tell us what she learned, along with Dr. Marilyn Gugliucci, Director of Geriatric Education and Research at the University of New England and creator of the program.

New York Times: Experiencing Life, Briefly, Inside a Nursing Home

(Photo by consumerfriendly via Flickr/Creative Commons)