BY NORM TOLLINSKY
Who are all these people and why are they asking me all these questions?
This is what hospital patients in Sudbury, Thunder Bay and other communities across the North are increasingly asking as more and more learners show up at their bedside.
Concerned that all this was a bit overwhelming, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre teamed up to produce a booklet called “Hello, We’re Learners.”
Funding was provided by the Interprofessional Collaboration Education Fund of Health Force Ontario and the Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities.
Staff at Thunder Bay Regional actually went to the trouble to count how many people typically come into contact with a patient.
“We determined there are about 35 people in a 24-hour period who will interact with a patient,” said Mary Jane Kurm, manager, 2A medical services. “It could be housekeeping staff, people bringing their food, nurses, doctors, OTs, PTs and people cleaning the windows. It goes on and on and on.”
With the establishment of NOSM and the transformation of the region’s health-care institutions into academic teaching centres, these numbers also include medical students, residents, physician assistants, dietitians, respiratory technicians, nurses-in-training and other learners.
“Patients are seeing a lot more health-care professionals and learners,” said Shelley Chisholm, regional injury prevention co-ordinator and, formerly, clinical educator for medicine. “We wanted them to know the roles they play in an academic teaching hospital and how all of them work together to provide care. A lot of times, patients tell their story over and over and over and don’t know who they’re telling it to.”
The booklet provides definitions of all the roles and explains the different levels of medical students. It also highlights the opportunity for patients to serve as partners in learning and provides advice on how to give feedback to learners.
“A lot of patients think that it’s the preceptor’s job to give feedback, but the best feedback learners can get is from patients,” said Chisholm.
If a learner failed to cover a patient when bathing him or if a medical student placed a cold stethoscope on a patient’s chest, the learner should know, said Patti Lee, director of medical and academic affairs.
Everybody wants to do a good job and getting that feedback is important, she said.
“The booklet broke the ice for the patients to become more empowered and set the stage for a better interaction between learners and patients,” added Bonnie Nicholas, patient and family centred care lead.
The hospital surveyed patients and learners prior to and following a trial distribution of the booklet to determine if perceptions changed.
“Everybody felt it was a very, very useful tool,” said Chisholm.
The next step is to consult with the hospital’s senior management, clinical leadership and patient and family centred care teams to decide how to roll it out and whether to retain the booklet format or use some other medium.
Partnering with other academic health science centers across the province is another option the hospital will explore.
