When Contact Is Not Enough: Affecting First Year Medical Students' Image towards Older Persons.

Context: Many medical schools have initiated care internships to familiarize their students with older persons and to instil a professional attitude.

Objective: To examine the impact of care internships on the image that first-year medical students have of older persons and to explore the underlying concepts that may play a role in shaping this image.

Design: Survey before and after a two-week compulsory care internship using the Aging Semantic Differential (ASD; 32 adjectives) and the Attitudes toward Old People (AOP; 34 positions) questionnaires.