Participation in the Patient as Teacher program can have positive, powerful, and lasting impacts on both undergraduate medical students and patients as teachers.

 

Benefits for Students:

  • develop a greater understanding of illness, sensitivity to patient perspectives and experiences, and appreciation of the active role patients have in their own health care1, 2, 3
  • personal and social benefits such as broadening students’ views of medicine and the ability to reflect on their roles in health care and in society2, 4, 5
  • build critical and creative skills to understand surgery from the perspectives of patients and the complex social roles of surgeons beyond simply the technical aspect of surgery
  • gain an appreciation for humanistic approaches to surgery (and medicine more broadly) and the importance of these approaches in the delivery of patient-centred care

 

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Selected References and Further Reading
  1. Kumagai AK, Murphy EA, Ross PT. 2009. Diabetes stories; use of patient narratives of diabetes to teach patient-centered care. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 14: 315-   326.
  2. Agrawal S, Capponi P, Lopez J, et al. 2016. From Surviving to Advising: A Novel Course Pairing Mental health and Addictions Service Users as Advisors to Senior         Psychiatry Residents. Academic Psychiatry, 40: 475-480.
  3. Ng SL, Kinsella EA, Firesen F, Hodges B. 2015. Reclaiming a theoretical orientation to r eflection in medical education research: a critical narrative review. Medical Education, 49: 461-475.
  4. Kumagai AK. 2008. A Conceptual Framework for the Use of Illness narratives in Medical Education. Academic Medicine, 83(7): 653-658.
  5. Kumagai AK, Naidu T. 2015. Reflection, Dialogue, and the Possibilities of Space. Academic Medicine, 90: 283-288.