Arthritis patients in Norfolk to help teach medical students
Arthritis patients in Norfolk are set to play a pioneering role in teaching medical students about their condition.
Each year 110 medical students will undertake the brand new undergraduate medical course at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, where talking to patients face-to-face and finding out about their problems will be a core element of learning from their first term.
As a result, course organisers hope medical students will become “more sensitive” to the needs of their patients.
Students at UEA will spend 15 weeks learning about arthritis and rheumatic disease in their first year. In most other medical schools, students spend a much shorter period learning about what are extremely common conditions towards the end of their training. During the 15-week semester, students will have a weekly placement in GP surgeries, and will also have a four-week attachment in rheumatology and orthopaedic departments in hospitals.
Medial research charity the Arthritis Research Campaign (arc) has awarded two of UEA's medical academics, rheumatologist Professor David Scott and GP Professor Amanda Howe a grant of almost £70,000 over two years to evaluate whether medical students learn more about arthritis from the new patient-centred musculoskeletal curriculum. They also want to find out if patients also benefit from their involvement.
“We will be recruiting arthritis patients from the new GP teaching practices in Norfolk and Suffolk, and who attend rheumatology clinics at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and the James Paget Hospital in Great Yarmouth,” explained Professor Howe.
“As patients are experts in their own condition, the students will learn a great deal from them, and we think patients will get something out of this too – they will get more time hearing their doctors discuss their condition with medical students, and more of a chance to show students how people cope with illness. We are confident that students who undertake this course will be shown to be more sensitive to the whole spectrum of patient concerns, and more effective in helping them with both their medical and social needs.”
The charity is supporting the UEA course because it believes strongly that many medical students are ill equipped to deal with arthritis and related problems when they qualify, even though arthritis accounts for one in five visits to the doctor.
