Where future doctors learn the rudiments of aging from elders

That time of year thou mayst in me behold - When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang - Upon those boughs which shake against the cold;.. — Sonnet 73, William Shakespeare BERKELEY — While steeping themselves in details of human anatomy and the signs and symptoms of a thousand and one diseases, medical students rarely have the luxury to contemplate their own attitudes toward sickness or what great writers have had to say about aging and mortality. A course on aging at UC Berkeley breaks with the paradigm, bringing future doctors into direct dialogue with elders in the community. In "Reader's Theater in a Medical Context: On Aging and Old Age," young people headed for careers in medicine "get to consider amongst themselves what it might be like to grow old — and then to test those considerations with old people," says clinical professor Guy Micco, who launched the offering in 2005. In his classroom, medical students enrolled in the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program and UC Berkeley premed students will discuss, for example, the normal aging process and ethical concerns in geriatric care. To deepen the conversation, the students also unearth poetry and prose on the themes of age and aging.