Exploring how to involve patient support group volunteers in medical education

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Patient contact is an indispensable part of medical education. It helps students to build integrated skills for history taking, communication, physical examination, and clinical reasoning. The role of patients in education may be passive, such as in bedside teaching, or it may be active, such as when the patient serves as a patient-teacher. Community volunteers who have had first hand illness experiences can be a very valuable resource for the training of undergraduate medical students, however, knowing where and how to recruit these individuals remains a challenge. A patient support group is an association of people sharing common interests and experiences regarding health-related matters. Members of such organisations are often experienced in discussing their disease and sharing ways to cope with the challenges of ...