Impliquer des patients dans la révision d’un curriculum de formation en médecine : une étude mixte sur l’intégration d’une perspective d’éthique clinique

Abstract

Background: The medical curriculum at the Faculty of Medicine of Université de Montréal has undertaken several major transformations, including the introduction of a new relational approach, that of the partnership with the patient. This study reports on the work completed to revise the problems for problem-based learning by a multidisciplinary group aiming to enhance medical trainee preparedness for the complexity of clinical practice and human interactions.

Objective: This study presents the revision of part of the curriculum of an undergraduate program in medicine (M.D. program) in which trainers, students and patients collaborated with an interdisciplinary team in health as well as human and social sciences.

Methods: A mixed methodology was used. 24 respondents from five different groups (medical students, patients, ethicists, social sciences specialists, professors of medicine) completed the questionnaire, comprising numeric responses as well as written comments. The distributions of the scores for the five groups were compared using the Mann–Whitney non-parametric test. Respondents’ comments underwent thematic qualitative analysis.

Results: All five groups highlighted the importance to avoid stereotyping groups on the basis of ethnic or cultural background. Educators predominantly expressed concern about the added workload the new problems and contents incurred. Social and Humanities Scientists pointed to the holistic approach that these revisions spelled for medical education. Patients were concerned with the transmission of their experiential knowledge and students were on the whole less critical and sought clear and explicit answers to the problems. Statistical tests yielded insignificant results.

Conclusion: The study demonstrated the added value of each group’s involvement in the curriculum revision process. Patients’ key contribution consisted of proposing a vision and raising awareness about the complexity of clinical situations and about the experience of illness and of living with illness.

This content has been updated on 17 November 2020 at 11 h 27 min.