East Lancashire patients recruited to help teach medical students (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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East Lancashire patients recruited to help teach medical students
9:00pm Saturday 18th August 2012 in News
TWENTY patients from East Lancashire have been recruited to help teach medical students.
The Patients as Educators programme, run by Lancashire teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, enables third, fourth and fifth year students from Manchester Medical School to examine and diagnose patients who have ongoing health problems.
The patient educators, who have previously had treatment at the Trust, assist the medical students in improving a wide range of their skills including communication, history-taking skills, examination skills and diagnostic skills.
Jill Hanslip, project manager and patient coordinator at the Trust, said: “The success of the programme and response from currently recruited patients has been impressive and we would like to build on it further by recruiting more patients with a wide range of conditions.
“Patients must have an ongoing health issue but be in a fit condition and happy to either be examined by medical students, or give their medical history to a student, often as part of an exam, revision or for general medical training skills.
“Medical students get the benefit of advances in technology as part of their training at the Trust, but there is no substitute for real patient contact.”
The program is the first of its kind in the North West and has already attracted interest from other teaching hospitals around the country.
Over 400 patient educators have been recruited since the program started in 2010, most from Preston and Chorley, but about 20 come from the Blackburn, Burnley, Hyndburn and Pendle areas.
An awards ceremony to thank the patient educators takes place at the Education Centre, Chorley Hospital, on August 29.
They will be presented with a certificate and a pin badge by the Dean of Manchester Medical School.
Comments(3)
mavrick
says...
12:06pm Sun 19 Aug 12
Izanears
says...
4:59pm Sun 19 Aug 12
mavrick wrote:And for heavens sake speak English
The biggest problem I have found is communication between hospitals, and even between wards and staff. I have observed this between two trusts. For example I was treated between Blackburn and Preston and Blackburn again. The amount of times my notes were missing or incorrect was worrying, My notes were mixed up with someone else's notes at which point I made my feelings known. No apology or promise to sort out the on going problems. As for training medical students I am all for it, but perhaps we could also instil in them that a patient is the purpose of their work and not the cause. Talk to patients, not around or over them, use plain English not medical Latin.
Toti Aiyrk says...
10:59pm Sat 18 Aug 12