The American Geriatrics Society would like to announce the Call for Applications for the 2009-2011 Geriatrics Education for Specialty Residents (GSR) program. Currently, there is an urgent need to create a structure for developing leaders in geriatrics in academic surgery and related medical specialties. The Geriatrics for Specialty Residents program address this need by allowing interested specialists to work in collaboration with the geriatrics program in their institution, thereby enhancing their knowledge and skills in teaching geriatrics principles to specialist residents.

We are looking forward to receiving applications from the specialties to develop, initiate and evaluate programs designed to increase education for residents in the geriatric aspect of their disciplines. The disciplines targeted by the grant are anesthesiology, emergency medicine, general surgery, gynecology, ophthalmology, orthopaedic surgery, otolaryngology, physical medicine & rehabilitation, thoracic surgery, and urology. Successful applicants will receive $20,000 funding/year for each of the two years (a total of $40,000 in funding). The deadline for applications is March 4, 2009.

We have added and optional Geriatrics Education for Specialty Residents Mentoring Program. The program will provide a supportive mentoring relationship between past GSR award recipients and GSR applicants with the purpose of affording applicants an opportunity to develop more competitive proposals.

Mentoring is geared towards both re-applicants and smaller specialty residency training programs that may not feel competitive for funding in the GSR program. The goal is to enhance the capacity of these residency programs to compete more effectively for GSR funding.

We anticipate mentoring of grantees will range from facilitating the adaptation of existing materials to the needs of the applicant institution to advising programs as they develop wholly new programs within their own institutions.

The GSR RFP is posted on our Web site at http://www.americangeriatrics.org/specialists/gsr/appinfo.asp/.

Additional information about the GSR program is posted at http://www.americangeriatrics.org/specialists/gsr_program.shtml.