Motivation
Many medical students grow up in an environment that bears little resemblance to the lives of people who, for example, face financial worries, limited health literacy, loneliness or complex care situations on a daily basis. As a result, they do not automatically gain an understanding during their training of how social circumstances influence health and care.
Elmarie, Gerda and Jeanine see opportunities to give people with lived experience a greater role in education, so that students can engage in dialogue with people who have first-hand knowledge of these experiences. But how do you ensure that such encounters are safe, valuable and educational for students, lecturers and those with lived experience alike?
Hypothesis
Using their innovation voucher, Elmarie, Gerda and Jeanine are investigating how people with lived experience in various social circumstances can be meaningfully involved in education. In this way, they hope to increase understanding of the influence of social factors on health and care. It is expected that these authentic encounters will contribute to greater understanding, empathy and practical skills among students.
Desired solution
At the heart of the project is a working group in which students engage in dialogue with parents of children requiring intensive care and learn about the impact of social circumstances on health and care. The project aims to provide practical guidance on collaborating with experts by experience in education. This guidance can then be applied within the Medicine programme and other degree programmes. In this way, the project contributes to an educational approach in which experiential knowledge and academic knowledge reinforce one another and better prepare students for their role in a diverse society.
Plan of action
The project builds on the ‘Vulnerable Groups’ minor, which forms part of the third year of the Medicine degree programme. As part of this minor, Gerda, Jeanine and Elmarie are developing a new working group in which students engage in dialogue with parents of children who require intensive care or have chronic illnesses. These meetings offer students the opportunity to learn from experiences that cannot be gleaned from books.
The working group is evaluated from the perspective of students, lecturers and experts by experience. Through reflective assignments, observations and discussions, the study examines the learning outcomes and the conditions that contribute to a safe and meaningful interaction.
