A revolution in health‑care education

Health-care education is evolving with a more interprofessional focus.

What is it like to live with chronic condition? What are the emotional ups and downs? How do you eat well and exercise when you feel sick? How do you manage your pain? How has your life changed?

Dalhousie University is launching an innovative mentorship program in September which will link “health mentors,” adult volunteers experiencing chronic illness, with an inter-professional student team.

Coordinator Susan Nasser is currently recruiting mentors for the Dalhousie Health Mentors Program. As experts about their own health, they would be required to meet with the student team four times a year and to share their experiences about their chronic condition as they navigate the health-care system.

The role of the students is not to provide advice but rather to gain an understanding of the daily challenges of living with a chronic condition or disability.

“It’s a very exciting learning opportunity,” says Diane MacKenzie, assistant professor in the School of Occupational Therapy. “It’s someone real telling them about what’s happened to them — that should provide for a very powerful educational experience. You can only do ‘paper and pencil’ for so long before you miss the true importance of what you’re learning about.”

Approximately 550 first-year students representing a wide swath of health-care programs from three main Dalhousie faculties — Faculty of Health Professions, Dalhousie Medical School and the Faculty of Dentistry — will participate in the program. That includes students in audiology, dental hygiene, health promotion, medicine, occupational therapy, pharmacy, physiotherapy, social work and many more Dalhousie programs. Also participating are students in clinical psychology (part of the Faculty of Science) and in health informatics from the Faculty of Computer Science.

“The health-care field can be very segmented, but this program will help to get students to collaborate as part of a team and draw on each other’s strengths,” says Prof. MacKenzie. “And hopefully this will change the health care of the future for the better.”

The Dalhousie Health Mentors Program is just the latest development in Dalhousie’s push to promote interprofessional learning, which is defined as “students from different professions learning about, from and with each other,” says Anne Godden-Webster, interprofessional experience coordinator for the Faculty of Health Professions.

Interprofessional modules have been incorporated into the curriculum of individual programs for more than a decade, with the aim of nurturing collaborative patient-centred care. Ideally, interprofessionally educated students will become health care workers who are comfortable interacting in teams and who are focused on the patient’s wellbeing.

Dalhousie’s program is modeled after the Health Mentors Program now in its third year at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. The Jefferson program involves more than 250 health mentors and 1,100 students; it’s a required element of the curriculum for students of medicine, nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, pharmacy and couple and family therapy.

Dr. Laurie Collins, faculty director for the Health Mentors Program, says their health mentors, who are typically seniors, have a sense that they’re at the forefront of a revolution in patient care.

“People with chronic illness don’t really get the care they’d like — in many cases, they’re frustrated and dissatisfied,” she explains. “So they’ve been eager to get involved. They really feel they’re contributing to the development of a better health care system.”

With its interprofessional emphasis, Dr. Collins says the program has drastically changed the culture of education since she went to Jefferson Medical College.

“When I went to Jefferson, I never met a PT (physiotherapy), an OT (occupational therapy) or even a nurse until I was a resident… We were trained in silos and were not really that good at communicating with each other,” she says. “And now, the students don’t even realize how strange that is; they understand the importance of working in teams. Ultimately, I think this program will really improve patient outcomes.”

Are you interested in becoming a health mentor? Please contact Susan Nasser, coordinator of the Dalhousie Health Mentors Program, by calling 494-1852 or emailing snasser@dal.ca