Adele - student assessment

Adele is one of our Patient Experience Partners. Here she talks about her involvement with medical education and what she gets out of it

Why did you decide to become a Patient Experience Partner (PEP)?

I've had stem cell surgery to treat an auto-immune condition and, although everything went well, I felt that I was treated as 'the subject' rather than as a person that needs to be informed about the procedure and involved in their own medical care. I wanted to help medical students understand the patient’s perspective, feel comfortable interacting with patients, and ultimately become better doctors. 

What activities are you involved with?  

One of the things I’ve done as a PEP is to observe the ‘formative’ OSCEs (Objective Structured Clinical Examinations) – practical assessments which help students prepare for real exams involving patient examination and diagnosis. The OSCEs use actors to play the part of the patient and a clinical tutor marks the student’s technical skills. The PEPs feed back on students' patient skills. Our feedback doesn’t count towards the official mark but can be given to the student for information.

Do you think this is useful?

Definitely! Medical students spend a lot of time in lectures, writing essays and doing research, but it is also important to add the human aspect to their medical training in the form of role-played patient/doctor face-to-face consultations. At the OSCEs students can receive feedback from mock patients and PEP observers in a safe learning environment without the pressure of a ‘real’ patient consultation, which we know from research students really value.

What do you get out of it?

I really enjoy being part of the medical education system. Observing the OSCE's gave me a 'behind the scenes look' at what that students have to go through to become doctors, and I’m very impressed with the high standard of Oxford medical students.

Although some of them are still developing their confidence in dealing with patients – learning how to talk about difficult subjects or do physical examinations in a sensitive way – they are all very motivated and clearly have a passion for medicine. It’s great to be able to contribute to their success by offering feedback as a PEP and I’m looking forward to observing the OSCEs again this year.

For more information about becoming a Patient Experience Partner, please email the Co-Leads for Patient Public Involvement in Medical Education: Dr Noemi Roy - noemi.roy@medsci.ox.ac.uk or Louie Fooks  louie.fooks@smbms.ox.ac.uk