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Abstract Category: Innovation & Technology |
Poster ID: IT18 |
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Patient Experiences as an educational tool in medicine – the use of the DIPEx website for the electronic learning ENVIRONMENT P.Auke Wiegersma, Ph.D.*, Els.L.M.Maeckelberghe, PhD. Dept. of Medical Sciences University Medical Centre Groningen,9713 AV Groningen, The Netherlands. DIPEx is an U.K based unique award winning website (www.dipex.org). It aims to give information and support to patients, their family and carers so that they are better informed about the life choices they now need to make. DIPEx also vividly conveys to health professionals what having an illness is really like. The DIPEx website provides analysis and carefully selected clips from video, audio and written interviews, detailing different aspects of the patients’ individual experiences from initial diagnosis through to the symptoms, treatments and side effects of the particular disease or condition. It also provides answers to frequently asked questions and reliable medical information with links to support groups and other useful materials. Each disease or health problem is based on 30 – 50 interviews and has its separate place on the website. The material is collected and analyzed by qualitative social science researchers based in the University of Oxford. So far the website has 15 such collections with 10 more on the way. To date these mainly concentrate on adults. Modules are under development for a new Youth DIPEx website, designed specifically by and for young people who are ill or have a health issue. The first two are the sexual health of young people and experiences of teenagers diagnosed with cancer. Other conditions will include obesity, diabetes, asthma, acne, HIV and Aids, mental health problems, children as carers, autism and cerebral palsy as well as healthy behavior. The information gathered by the interviews gives the medical student a unique insight in the way patients deal with their illness, how it affects their life and what impact treatment – meaning both intervention and professional attitude – has on the coping behavior of patients, family and carers. Using the module “Living with Dying” in which patients relate their individual experiences of living with a terminal illness, in the presentation several examples are given of how in an electronic learning environment the DIPEx information can be used to teach medical students the many aspects of professional behavior necessary for a good patient-doctor interaction, give them insight in the impact illness has on the life of the individuals as well as those around them and, last but not least, prompt them to rethink the various often complex (professional) issues pertinent to the case histories presented.
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