Service user engagement in healthcare education as a mechanism for value based recruitment: An evaluation study

Within the United Kingdom (UK) there is an increasing focus on Values Based Recruitment (VBR) of staff working in the National Health Service (NHS) in response to public inquiries criticising the lack of person-centred care. All NHS employees are recruited on the basis of a prescribed set of values. This is extended to the recruitment of student healthcare professionals, yet there is little research of how to implement this. Involving Service Users in healthcare educational practice is gaining momentum internationally, yet involvement of service users in VBR of ‘would be’ healthcare professionals remains at an embryonic phase. Adult nurses represent the largest healthcare workforce in the UK, yet involvement of service users in their recruitment has received scant attention. This paper is an evaluation of the inclusion of service users in a VBR of 640 adult student nurses

“Being Guided”: What Oncofertility Patients’ Decisions Can Teach Us About the Efficacy of Autonomy, Agency, and Decision-Making Theory in the Contemporary Critical Encounter

Recent research on patient decision-making reveals a disconnect between theories of autonomy, agency, and decision-making and their practice in contemporary clinical encounters. This study examines these concepts in the context of female patients making oncofertility decisions in the United Kingdom in light of the phenomenon of “being guided.” Patients experience being guided as a way to cope with, understand, and defer difficult treatment decisions. Previous discussions condemn guided decision-making, but this research suggests that patients make an informed, autonomous decision to be guided by doctors. Thus, bioethicists must consider the multifaceted ways that patients enact their autonomy in medical encounters

Identifying barriers and improving communication between cancer service providers and Aboriginal patients and their families: the perspective of service providers

BACKGROUND: Aboriginal Australians experience poorer outcomes from cancer compared to the non-Aboriginal population. Some progress has been made in understanding Aboriginal Australians’ perspectives about cancer and their experiences with cancer services. However, little is known of cancer service providers’ (CSPs) thoughts and perceptions regarding Aboriginal patients and their experiences providing optimal cancer care to Aboriginal people. Communication between Aboriginal patients and non-Aboriginal health service providers has been identified as an impediment to good Aboriginal health outcomes. This paper reports on CSPs’ views about the factors impairing communication and offers practical strategies for promoting effective communication with Aboriginal patients in Western Australia (WA).METHODS: A qualitative study involving in-depth interviews with 62 Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal CSPs from across WA was conducted between March 2006 - September 2007 and April-October 2011. CSPs were asked to share their experiences with Aboriginal patients and families experiencing cancer. Thematic analysis was carried out. Our analysis was primarily underpinned by the socio-ecological model, but concepts of Whiteness and privilege, and cultural security also guided our analysis.RESULTS: CSPs’ lack of knowledge about the needs of Aboriginal people with cancer and Aboriginal patients’ limited understanding of the Western medical system were identified as the two major impediments to communication. For effective patient–provider communication, attention is needed to language, communication style, knowledge and use of medical terminology and cross-cultural differences in the concept of time. Aboriginal marginalization within mainstream society and Aboriginal people’s distrust of the health system were also key issues impacting on communication. Potential solutions to effective Aboriginal patient-provider communication included recruiting more Aboriginal staff, providing appropriate cultural training for CSPs, cancer education for Aboriginal stakeholders, continuity of care, avoiding use of medical jargon, accommodating patients’ psychosocial and logistical needs, and in-service coordination.CONCLUSION: Individual CSPs identified challenges in cross-cultural communication and their willingness to accommodate culture-specific needs within the wider health care system including better communication with Aboriginal patients. However, participants’ comments indicated a lack of concerted effort at the system level to address Aboriginal disadvantage in cancer outcomes

Making Research Accessible in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

Open scholarship, which encompasses open science, open access, open data, open education, and all other forms of openness in the scholarly and research environment, is transforming how knowledge is created and shared. The 3rd annual Open Scholarship in Practice (OSiP) day was held at UBC on October 25, 2019 to explore innovative areas in open scholarship, and included a full day of hands-on workshops for faculty, staff, and students to learn how to incorporate Open practices into their work.Medicine, Faculty ofMedicine, Department ofUnreviewedFacult

Approaches to Understanding and Addressing Health-Related Concerns of Communities: The Education of Health Professionals

Medical education is a vast and ever-growing field that has to consider and keep pace with the emergence of new diseases and the advancement of therapeutic methods. In order to accommodate this growing reality of the field, medical curricula incorporate much factual knowledge into the education of the students. However, the emphasis on factual biomedical knowledge has positioned doctors as the unique possessors of knowledge that they disseminate for the benefit of society. As a consequence the patients’ /clients’ experiential expertise is not recognized as a viable source of knowledge and clients are treated as passive service recipients who have little role in the diagnosis and management of their own conditions. This situation has led a number of scholars to question the ethical underpinnings of medical practice and call for change in the status quo. Our assumption is that such change could be achieved by reforming medical education, so that community members have a voice in the development and delivery of curricula. However, there are many barriers to meaningful community participation in health professional education. In our community-based participatory action research project, we are exploring how the current relationship between a medical school (university campus) and people who are vulnerable or marginalized (community) is tempered by different worldviews and understandings of knowledge and learning. We draw on a review of the literature and key informant interviews to explore the means through which a shared understanding of different forms of knowledge and learning could be promoted in campus and community, and to present a mechanism that offers optimal practices to engage campus and community in health professional education. In this presentation we will present findings to date and engage the audience in a discussion about the implications of different views of knowledge in the university and community

The Learning Exchange : a Shared Space for the University of British Columbia and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Communities

The Learning Exchange was established by the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1999 in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). The challenge has been to create a shared space for learning exchanges between two very different communities: a research-intensive university and an inner city area most commonly depicted as a place of hopelessness. The Learning Exchange provides an interesting model for how shared spaces can work to bring benefits to both to individual community members, students and faculty, as well as to the university and community organizations. It provides a place in the community where UBC students and faculty, and DTES residents and organizations connect, pursue common interests and learn from each other with a long-term goal of bringing about social change. Examples are given of the ways in which attention is paid to the physical, emotional and intellectual environment and the synergies that occur in shared spaces. Based on our experience and lessons learned we identify important principles for creating successful university-community shared spaces.Medicine, Faculty ofOther UBCMedicine, Department ofReviewedFacultyOthe