2023-05-02 07:21:52
The project that aims to improve doctor-patient communication was devised by doctor Vincent Dumez, who in turn was under treatment. The idea is revolutionizing teaching. In Italy the example followed in Emilia-Romagna
Who could teach a medical or healthcare student how to develop a collaborative relationship with patients, a good communication, a relationship based on ethical principles? The best answer seems to be: the patients themselves, once they have themselves been adequately trained. Indeed, if doctors are specialists in a disease, patients are certainly specialists in their disease. Therefore the patient has a share of expertise that he can transfer to the doctor, on the basis of his own daily and unfortunately often decennial experience. this is the principle from which the Canadian project of the partner patientwhich has led some patients to become co-teachers in university courses attended by future health professionals.
The experience of the sufferer
Behind the project is the commitment of a passionate man, Vincent Dumez, co-director of the Center d’excellence sur le partenariat avec les patients et le public (Ceppp) of Montral (Canada), who has had a patient experience himself, and who defines himself as a great user of the system of care. According to what he has learned from his experience of him, whoever suffers from one chronic disease
has the goal of continuing to lead a life as normal as possible and to follow their existential projects. And the best way to do that is to become the competent caregiver of himself. Vincent Dumez currently sits on the steering committees of several public health institutions in Quebec, and his initiative is revolutionizing medical school teaching. Since 2010 in Montral we have developed a project in which i patient partners not only teach the courses, but also help to structure them explained Dumez to Corriere Salute.
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Collaboration between patient and caregiver
The educational contribution of partner patients mainly concerns areas such as collaboration between patient and caregiver, communication and ethics. An important challenge that everyone learns to value and recognize the knowledge of the other. An exchange that takes place not only in university classrooms, but also in specific reflection workshops, during which students tell partner patients about the difficult experiences they live with their real patients. a very engaging exchange for both patients and students. At first some university professors hesitated, but once they got involved they never wanted to go back. At the beginning the project didn’t start in all the classes says Dumez, so at a certain point we had professors who worked together with the patients and others who weren’t involved. But when they realized how effective the intervention model was, they asked to participate.
Diabetes and mental health
a path that is helping to overcome the model of paternalistic medicine, in which the patient has no voice and all choices are made by the doctor. In the partnership-based model, there is an improvement in the quality of life not only of the patient, but also of the practitioner. And now a new experience is about to be launched, based on clinical stages for students lasting three months, carried out not in the classroom but directly inside the hospital, with a specific focus on the care relationship. Some areas of Medicine, such as cardiology, pulmonology and endocrinology they are particularly sensitive, explains Dumez, due to the importance of compliance with the treatment. Just think of the example of patients suffering from diabetes
, who must be educated and informed about prevention activities. Another area in which the relationship is very important is that of mental health and now we even have two patient partners who have made it onto the psychiatry school admissions committee.
Who followed suit
In Modena, students of medicine, nursing, obstetrics, occupational therapy and radiotherapy degree courses are trained in co-teaching with patientsto prepare operators capable of more humane care – he says Maria Stella Padula, professor of General Medicine and Primary Care in the Medicine and Surgery degree course at Unimore and director of the EduCare Laboratory —. A process that responds to the needs deriving fromincrease in diagnostic and treatment technologies, which often dehumanize the doctor-patient relationship. Patient educators who leave the University can transmit transversal skills, such as communication of the diagnosis, adherence to complex treatments, adaptation to the limits induced by the disease, end-of-life difficulties. Our patients and caregivers become trainers after being selected and having acquired specific skills in specialization courses, in order to transform their story into messages that help students and professionals to improve relational aspects and the organization of services. Experience, the object of research, has led the University to create a Center for training and research with patients, the EduCare Laboratory, for the teaching of a Medicine oriented to the person with the disease and not to the disease. Maria Stella Padula practices general medicine, teaches this discipline in the degree course in Modena and knows the care needs of patients and families in their life context, therefore convinced of the need to change the training of doctors already during the university period , with the introduction of complementary patient knowledge. Knowing Vincent Dumez in Montral in 2013 was an epiphany – he says – and started a process of collaboration and meetings in which other partner patients also participated, such as Mathieu Jakson and Marie-Claude Vanier of the Montral Pharmacy Faculty. The result was an agreement between the universities of Montral and Modena, with the support of the current Rector, Carlo Adolfo Porro.
May 2, 2023 (change May 2, 2023 | 07:22)
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