Together We Learn: Collaborating with Patients and Families to Shape Our Curriculum

In the rapidly evolving landscape of healthcare, interprofessional education (IPE) serves as a cornerstone in preparing students across health professions to deliver collaborative and patient- and family-centered care. The partnership with patients and family members in interprofessional education is pivotal. It provides students with real-world perspectives on the impacts of medical decisions and care processes, offering insights that are often absent in traditional clinical education. By learning directly from the experiences of those they aim to serve, students develop a greater empathy for patients and understanding of patient- and family-centered care, which is crucial for effective practice in diverse health settings.
This seminar will outline a current educational collaboration at the Medical University of South Carolina that integrates patients, family members, the hospital, humanities, and interprofessional education. The result is a required 1-credit hour course in which over 100 health professions students in 9 different academic programs are enrolled in each year. The course experience introduces students to the core concepts of Patient and Family-Centered Care (dignity and respect, information sharing, collaboration, and participation), engages students in active listening exercises with classmates, and teams students with volunteer patient and family advisors who tell their stories for the purposes of teaching the PFCC core concepts. Storytelling is a powerful method for conveying experiences and emotions that statistics and clinical data often fail to capture. For healthcare students, stories from patients and families can illuminate the human side of medical care, bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and its practical application as well as providing opportunity to deepen discussion of interprofessional roles and responsibilities and shared goals. Students have indicated that the interprofessional course helped them to see the world through the eyes of others, enhancing their ability to empathize with patients and colleagues; develop appreciation for complex care situations, and gain a greater awareness and sensitivity towards cultural differences in healthcare. Patients and family members contributed to original course design and participate each semester in course activities and assessment of student learning. Learning objectives, activity descriptions, rubrics, and assessments and evaluation data for this 1-credit hour course will be shared with seminar participants.

During this session, participants will strategize with session facilitators about how to create a similar learning experiences that teach patient- and family-centered care, partnering with patients and families to teach IP students through storytelling. Focus will be on options for how to develop this curriculum with consideration for available resources within attendees' own institutions. Participants will be guided through brainstorming activities and real-time polling to develop actionable strategies that they can take back to their respective settings.

Learning objectives for this seminar include:
1. Explain the core concepts of Patient and Family-Centered Care and provide examples to illustrate understanding.
2. Analyze the impact of including patients and family members in healthcare education, and articulate both opportunities and challenges.
3. Develop actionable strategies for incorporating real-world patient and family perspectives into the interprofessional educational curriculum at their institutions, including identification of teaching methodologies and resources needed.