What should medical students learn in a long term conditions placement

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    What do patients think we should teach medical students: Involving patients at the point of curriculum design(InPaCD).

  • IRAS ID

    297813

  • Contact name

    Valerie Wass

  • Contact email

    valerie.wass@abdn.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of Aberdeen

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    1 years, 0 months, 1 days

  • Research summary

    Patients are the backbone of undergraduate medical education. Students typically have contact with patients on hospital wards, in the community and in a facilitated learning environment to take histories, practice examination and formulation of diagnoses and develop communication skills. The curriculum for medical schools is developed by clinicians and educators and the literature suggests that, across medical education, we do not ask patients what their views are on what should be taught. We know that many of our patients have multiple long term conditions (multimorbidity) and that caring for these patients is complex. The evidence we use to deliver best care often focuses on single conditions and caring for multimorbid patients requires that we focus on patients beliefs and on values based care. We need a good understanding of what is important to our patients, in order to care for them well.
    This project seeks to explore patients experiences of primary and secondary care and their ideas of what medical students should learn to help them provide good care for patients with long term conditions. We hope to use this knowledge to inform the development of the learning outcomes for the block to align with patients beliefs around what represents good care.
    We will recruit patients from general practice and Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (10 patients in total) to participate in semi-structured interviews exploring their experiences of care and their thoughts on what medical students should learn, or be taught, to help them provide good care for patients with long term conditions. Participants will be from both urban and rural background and be affected by a range of long term conditions.

  • REC name

    South Central - Oxford B Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    21/SC/0396

  • Date of REC Opinion

    22 Dec 2021

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion