Background:

The conference will look at the progress that has been made since the first 'Where's the Patient's Voice?' conference was held in Vancouver, Canada in 2005. View the 2005 conference report here.

Description:

The conference is about practice, innovation and theory that embed the patient/client/service user voice in health professional education. It is an opportunity to share examples of how health professional education can be enriched by patient involvement. Over three days, participants will present examples of collaborative
projects between educators and patient/community groups and examine the outcomes of these partnerships for faculty, patients, students and the learning environment.

Audience:

The conference is international and interprofessional in scope. Interested professions will include: medicine, nursing, midwifery, physical therapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy, kinesiology, social work, dietetics and other health disciplines. Participants and presenters will include:

Topics:

Abstracts are invited on examples of "patient"* involvement in health professional education across the continuum of education (e.g. undergraduate, postgraduate, practice education, continuing professional development, in-service training), including:

• Educational initiatives that have been implemented and evaluated.
• Descriptions of progress and lessons learned over the last ten years.
• Patient experiences as educators of health professionals.

*We use the term patient for the sake of brevity, to include people with health problems (clients, consumers, people living with [condition], community members, their care givers (including parents and family), and healthy people (community members, lay people, well women etc). Patients may be individual educators or work in organized groups set up to deliver education and provide peer support. Some education may be delivered by organizations in the community.

Patient involvement in education includes the following areas:

• Bringing their experience to learning groups of established professionals or to in-service training
• Involved in creating learning materials (e.g. paper-based or electronic case or scenario; course materials, videos)
• As standardized / simulated or volunteer patients involved in creation of their roles and assessment
• Sharing their stories and experiences with learners in the classroom including professionals/in-service training
• As teachers and assessors or evaluators involved in teaching or assessment of students/learners(e.g. teaching associates trained to teach and assess pelvic or breast exams; parents giving feedback to students on communication skills)
• As equal partners in student education, assessment and curriculum development (e.g. patient educators collaborate in setting curriculum objectives, assesment criteria)
• Involved in decision making at the institutional level (e.g. student selection, reviewing funding applications, advisory boards, curriculum committees)