European Academy for Medicine of Ageing (EAMA)

The European Academy for Medicine of Ageing was founded in 1995 by a nucleus group of European professors: Duursma (Utrecht, NL), Evans (Oxford, GB), Michel (Geneve, CH) and Stahelin (Basel, CH). The aim was to get an adequate postgraduate training under the auspices of an international faculty. A whole curriculum consists of four one-week sessions over a period of two years. in each session student's state of the art lectures, group discussions followed by plenary presentations, as well as the lectures of members of the Executive Board and invited experts are scored and analyzed. Meanwhile EAMA is in its sixth session. The evaluation (comparison of first with last part) shows its great success with an overall improvement of 32%, content of take home messages (28%), scientific lectures (31%) and techniques of presentation (37%). The EAMA has achieved one of its major goals to attract young geriatricians not only from Europe but also from North and Latin America, Africa and Near East. Several networking groups have been established on special fields of interest (e.g. falls, dementia, diabetes mellitus). A recently performed survey showed that about two thirds of the former students have meanwhile taken over a leading (academic) position in geriatrics in their countries.