They also point out their key disease findings to the students. In the second workshop, patients teach the students sensitive interviewing skills to identify drug use and assess sexual risk behaviors. For third year medical students , we offer a number of different workshops during the Family Medicine Clerkship. Some workshops focus on interviewing and treating patients with specific conditions such as musculoskeletal problems, headaches, sleep problems, and hypertension. Other workshops focus on patient physician communication and emphasize, effective interviewing, culturally sensitivity and understanding the patient in their world.
Resident programs are custom designed but focus on similar themes.
See Available Services for a listing of programs offered at off-site settings. Today, with shorter hospital stays, medical trainees don't have the exposure to as wide a variety of patient illnesses as they did in the past. Howard Barrows, M.D. was a pioneer in addressing this problem when he discovered that he could successfully train people to portray various medical conditions. Currently, universities all over the United States and Canada train patients with and without medical conditions to teach and evaluate medical personnel. By teaching about my illness, I feel as though I've played a part in educating future physicians.