Hearing the Patient Voice: Patients as Educators in Medical Education

To the Editor: Shi and Nambudiri’s1 call “to more comprehensively emphasize skills and knowledge needed for trainees to manage chronic diseases” in medical education is timely. Their approaches include introducing learning about chronic care in preclinical years, prioritizing chronic care education across specialties, focusing on chronic care in the fourth year, developing chronic-disease-focused advanced clerkships, and leveraging technology. A noted omission was real patients as educators within the curriculum, an “invaluable and currently undermobilized resource for the future of medical education.”2 There is increasing interest in a more active patient role in medical education to “help enhance student experiences of real-world medicine,” recognizing patients as “experts” in their own medical conditions.3 Feasibility and positive learning impact of a model placing chronic illness patients at the center as autonomous educators were demonstrated within an interprofessional learning workshop for patient-centered care.4 A key message of patients as “health mentors” was needing to understand visible and invisible impacts of chronic conditions for health system change.5 Reported benefits for patient educators of a “Living With Chronic Disease” workshop for medical students included companionship or improved knowledge of their condition (reciprocal learning).2 Family cancer caregiver involvement within medical education given unique caregiver needs within increasing cancer survivorship has been proposed.6 Patients as “full partners” in the health care team, including in medical education,7 may positively impact attitudes as well as skills and knowledge in chronic illness care. Further study of the effectiveness of patient-as-educator models within medical education is warranted. Hedy S. Wald, PhDClinical professor of family medicine, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, and director of resident resilience and wellbeing, Residency Programs in Child Neurology and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities, Boston Children’s Hospital–Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; [email protected]