Reaching 2,000 people in the community and the university, this newsletter promotes patient and community involvement in health professional education at UBC.
Can you help with a homelessness curriculum project?
Medical student Alec Yu is leading an initiative to design curriculum that addresses the effects of housing and homelessness on health.
Starting in July, the curriculum will be piloted for third-year medical students during their family medicine rotations across the province. It will have an on-line component as well as a local face-to-face learning opportunity for students to speak with individuals who have lived experience.
The goal is to teach students about what homelessness can look like around BC, how to sensitively identify who is having challenges with housing, and how these patients meet their medical and social needs.
UBC Patent & Community Partnership for Education is assisting Alec to include examples of people’s lived experiences in the on-line module to make the issues come alive for students and challenge some of the assumptions that students may have.
If you have lived experience of homelessness or housing problems and its effects on health and wellbeing that you would be willing to share with students, please contact angela.towle@ubc.ca for more information.
Winter Patient & Community Voices Workshops for Health Care Students
Talk is Cheap: Living and Communicating with Aphasia
February 7, 1:30-4:30pm Partner: UBC Aphasia Mentoring Program
Aphasia Mentors will share practical advice for working with aphasia clients, and present community resources available to people living with this challenging condition.
A Space to Thrive: What Young Women in Poverty Say They Need from Health Care Providers
February 26, 5:30-7:30pm Partner: Justice for Girls
Improving health care experiences for young women and ways to reduce barriers individually and collectively are discussed in the context of intersecting forms of oppression (gender, age, colonialism, racism).
Positive Reflections and Voices Unheard: Learning from Persons Living with HIV – March 4, 6:30-8:30pm Partner: Positive Living BC
Students will be introduced to the realities of living with HIV through personal stories and reflections of community members. Support and advocacy available in Vancouver-based community organizations serving persons living with HIV will also be presented.
Mental Health: Empathy and Compassion – March 12, 6-8pm Partner: Pathways Serious Mental Illness Society
Recovering from a mental illness can be challenging and stigmatizing. This workshop looks at the role of empathy and compassion in recovery from mental illness. Workshop facilitators are people living with mental health conditions who understand the challenges and barriers and will share their personal experiences.
Community engagement in end of life care education for physicians
On January 16th, 15 caregivers and community advocates recruited by Patient and Community Partnership for Education came together for a focus group on end of life care.
Participants shared their ideas on the key competencies family physicians should have when providing end of life care. The findings will be used to inform the development of continuing medical education focused on end of life care for practicing physicians across BC.
“The family physician very often comes in with their own bias and their own thoughts about how things should be approached at the end of life, and the ability to be able to suspend those mental models and to be open to listening and understand a different perspective is important,” said one participant.
The project is a partnership between the UBC Division of Continuing Professional Development (UBC CPD) and the Practice Support Program (PSP), through the Doctors of BC.
The first semester of the Health Mentors pilot at Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile wrapped up in December with a meeting to find out what students and mentors thought of the experience.
"We, as tutors, are very grateful to UBC for giving us the opportunity to install the Program at our Faculty because, as the evidence showed, it is a new window for the students to receive more integral and humanistic training to manage persons with any health condition, " says program lead Cristina Di Silvestre.
December is the end of the academic year in Chile. The program will start up again in March. Stay tuned!
Survey Participants Needed!
Have you been a patient partner on a research project in Canada?
The Patient Engagement In Research Scale study needs patient partners to complete an online survey to validate the Patient Engagement In Research Scale (PEIRS). The study takes 20-30 minutes. Read more...
