Primary care education and current challenges; bringing patients and the community into the classroom.

Primary care education and current challenges; bringing patients and the community into the classroom.

Popoola, Adetutu, M., Neden, Catherine A., Kent and Medway Medical School

Background:

Kent and Medway Medical School (KMMS) has implemented a practical and novel approach of inviting patients and carers to share their lived experiences alongside community healthcare professionals with students in years 1 and 2. In collaboration with local third party and community healthcare organisations, they designed six in-person teaching symposia where each week of clinical placement is themed with campus-based learning outcomes. When students are studying heart, lungs and blood, patients with long term respiratory or cardiac conditions with their community healthcare professionals are invited to the classroom at the beginning of the placement week to share their stories and what caring for them in the community looks like. This provides an insight into holistic patient care in the community and aims to tackle the challenges of limited teaching time, space and resources existing in the primary care clinical environment.

Methods:

Two patients and two healthcare professionals (guided by a set of reflective questions) are involved in teaching a year group (divided into halves) to allow for a safe teaching space and quality student/patient/clinician engagement. This occurs over an hour giving students direct opportunities to ask questions about patient-lived experiences. Feedback is obtained from students, patients and community healthcare professionals.

Results:

Students emphasised learning the importance of a community Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) through early patient and professional engagement and their expectations on clinical placements. They valued learning about their patients through their experiences, clinical pathways from diagnosis to management and the biopsychosocial impact of these.

Discussion:

This is an innovative method of empowering patients’ contribution to teaching/learning design, delivery and curriculum development. Students develop an insight into patients’ lived experiences before going on placement. It has fostered teaching and learning relationships with community healthcare providers and provided a strategy to tackle the capacity challenge existing in primary care.