B.1 Symposium:

Unpacking Power, Harm, Relationality and Reciprocity that Lie Beneath the Surface: Reflecting upon Patient Engagement in Health Professions Education

Prachi Khanna, Sean Patenaude, Katelyn Greer, Janet Rodriguez, Canada

Abstract: The benefits of patient engagement continue to be felt more by institutions than those with lived experience. This session will critically explore the complexities of patient engagement in health professions education (HPE), focusing on the ethics, costs, and relational dynamics that extend beyond compensation.

This session will bring together individuals who offer intersectional perspectives, drawing from their experiences as patient partners in HPE, patient engagement professionals, peer supporters, learners, HPE facilitators, and researchers. The session will challenge participants to rethink common assumptions surrounding patient engagement and suggest strategies for advocating for equity and justice in patient engagement. The discussion will address the potential of harm in the often-extractive interaction of patient partners with large institutions, with particular attention to unintended harm from outdated and inflexible institutional policies and procedures. Attendees will examine the hidden costs of sharing personal experiences and consider the challenges that arise when limited time and budgets in academics and healthcare pose challenges to meaningful patient engagement.

Drawing from illustrative real-world examples, case vignettes, and first-hand experiences, the session will emphasize approaches for ethical practice, reciprocity, and responsibility in HPE, encouraging participants to be reflexive by recognizing their circle of influence in fostering good patient engagement. Participants will leave with an enhanced understanding of relationally responsible patient engagement, equipped with novel solutions for equitable and ethical engagement and co-production in HPE.

B.2 Symposium:

Procedures with Perspective: Amplifying Patient Voices in Pre-clerkship Clinical Skills Training

Tianna Sheih, Erika Schillinger, Jesse Rokicki-Parashar, Kim Osborn, Tamara Montacute, Stanford University, & Shivanka Juneja, Malvika Juneja, Baylor College of Medicine, USA

Abstract: In 2019, faculty and students at Stanford School of Medicine launched Primary Care Defined: Perspectives and Procedures (FAMMED 215), an elective course designed to teach pre-clerkship MD and PA students primary care-focused procedural skills through hands-on practice. Recognizing the absence of the patient perspective in these sessions, we aimed to enhance the course so students not only gained technical proficiency but also learned to prioritize the patient experience.

Interventions such as short videos can help bridge classroom learning with clinical experience, while reducing logistical barriers often associated with live patient panels (Peters et al, 2017). We created two short professional videos featuring real patients sharing their experiences with (1) IUD insertion and (2) shoulder steroid injection. These videos were integrated into our procedural training sessions, and we surveyed student knowledge, skills, and attitudes towards the patient videos.

Following initial success at Stanford, we expanded to Baylor College of Medicine, where the IUD video was incorporated into a broader OB/GYN clinical skills workshop.Our panel includes faculty presenters from both institutions and one of our patient partners. We will outline the video development process, share lessons learned, and present survey results: 29/31 (93.5%) of Stanford students and 12/20 (60.0%) of Baylor students “strongly agreed” that the IUD video positively impacted their learning.

By demonstrating that pre-recorded patient videos are an efficient, effective, scalable way to integrate patient perspectives into procedural education, we hope to encourage broader adoption of this innovative, sustainable teaching method across medical curricula.

B.3 Workshop:

What difference does it make? Opportunities and Challenges in Assessment of Impact of Patient Involvement in Health Professional Education

Cathy Kline, Bonita Sawatzky, Angela Towle, William Godolphin, University of British Columbia, Canada

Abstract: Background: The 2015 Vancouver Statement called for high-quality research and evaluation of the long-term impact of patient involvement in health professional education on learners and patients. Assessing impact is challenging for many reasons including difficulties in tracking and engaging past participants over time and ascertaining if enduring outcomes are the result of a particular educational innovation or other factors.

Methods: Welcome, introductions, housekeeping (10 mins). Presentation of examples of outcome studies of UBC’s Health Mentors program that have used quantitative (e.g. case-based assessment) and qualitative (e.g. follow up interviews and focus groups) methods to assess the lasting effects of the program on students and patient mentors up to 10 years post-program. Successes, challenges and limitations will be shared (20 mins). Small group discussion: What kinds of evaluation have you tried? What have you discovered? How can we advance evaluation to collectively build an evidence base for patient and public involvement in health professional education? How can patients and students be partners in research and evaluation efforts? (40 mins) Large group discussion: best ideas to inform the development of a good practice guide for the field (10 mins). Wrap up: next steps for individual and collective action (10 mins). Target audience: Anyone who has an interest in research and program evaluation of patient involvement in health professional education (educators, researchers, policy makers, patients, students).

B.4 Workshop:

Co-Facilitating Critically and Reflexively: Bringing Patient Partnership to Life in the Classroom

Sacha Agrawal, Kateryna Metersky, Elizabeth Cadavid, Michelle Francis, Toronto, Canada

Abstract: Patient partners are frequently invited into health professions classrooms to share their lived experience, perspectives and knowledge with students. Often, an implicit goal of involving patients in this way is to teach students to engage collaboratively with patients as partners in care. However, the same hierarchical power relations that have historically operated in clinical spaces can also surface in the classroom. One approach to disrupting these power differences is for patient partners to act as co-facilitators in learning activities alongside clinical faculty/instructors. In a co-facilitated learning activity, students have the opportunity to directly observe partnership between clinician and patient in real time and real life, in a way that can serve as a model for future collaborative practice. However, successfully co-facilitating across differences of lived and learned expertise is difficult, as it requires that both facilitators bring a heightened awareness of self and other to the activity, while communicating openly to address both visible and hidden power dynamics. Through this workshop, we aim to build exchange knowledge and build our collective ability to co-facilitate critically, reflexively and equitably to inspire students to create a more just healthcare culture. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss their prior experiences as instructors, patients and co-facilitators, consider some of the hidden power dynamics that operate in health professions education classrooms, and work through some common co-facilitation scenarios that can can pose challenges. By reimagining facilitation as a shared, reflexive practice, we aim to move beyond inclusion toward transformation.

B.5 Workshop

Crip Care, Mad Pride, and Neurodivergent Solidarity: Building Change Together

Heather McCain & Michael McCain, Live Educate Transform Society, Vancouver, Canada

Abstract: This workshop is an opportunity to learn about disability and neurodiversity through the perspectives of lived experience and community knowledge. Rooted in Disability Justice, the session centres the expertise of disabled, mad, and neurodivergent communities as essential sources of knowledge, resistance, and change.

The workshop introduces key frameworks such as crip care, mad pride, and the neurodivergent paradigm, which challenge dominant medical and deficit-based narratives. Participants will learn how these communities define their own identities and understand justice and liberation on their own terms, challenging stigma, reclaiming power, and building movements grounded in interdependence and collective care.

Through stories, conversation, and reflection, participants will learn how disabled, mad, and neurodivergent people have built movements, created culture, and pushed for change – often while fighting systems that ignore their voices or speak over them instead of listening to them.

This workshop invites participants to foster meaningful change and create affirming environments – in schools, workplaces, and community spaces. Together we will explore what it means to move beyond awareness – acting alongside disabled, mad, crip, and neurodivergent communities in the shared and ongoing work of collective care and liberation.

B.6 Oral Presentations: Engaging Patients in Student Feedback

The power patients possess: engaging patients in feedback conversations

Marcel Verhoeven, Matthijs Bosveld, Carolin Sehlbach, Maastricht University, The Netherlands

Abstract:

Background:Patient feedback is essential for improving healthcare professionals’ performance and fostering person-centered care. However, barriers such as power dynamics, role conflicts, and lack of tools to invite feedback hinder effective feedback conversations. Despite the recognized value of patient feedback, its integration into lifelong learning therefore remains limited.

Methods: Using a design-based research approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 healthcare professionals and 10 patient partners to explore perspectives on patient feedback as a tool for learning. These insights informed the development of a two-session, interprofessional training program, which was subsequently piloted and evaluated through observations and surveys in an academic hospital.

Results: Participants acknowledged the importance of patient feedback in improving treatment relationships, professional performance, and organizational care processes. However, they faced challenges such as vulnerability, shifting relationships, and conflicting roles as patient-educators or professional-learners. The training program fostered a safe space for open dialogue, allowing healthcare professionals to gain insight into patients’ experiences with providing feedback and the theory behind patient feedback. Participants described the training as mutually beneficial and inspirational, because they could see one another as humans.

Recognising Mistakes: Patient Mentors (PMs) Supporting Problematic Students in Understanding and Changing Their Behaviours

Jools Symons, University of Leeds, UK

Abstract: We trained 13 Patient Mentors from the Patient | Carer Community (PCC) to run one-on-one sessions with struggling students. Referrals from programme leads typically involve students facing professionalism issues: poor attendance, lack of engagement. These 90-minute sessions, face-to-face or online, provide a private space so students receive tailored support from PMs. This support is further enhanced by matching students with PMs (gender, age, cultural-background, religious-background, or family dynamics), providing trusted and relatable mentors (General Medical Council 2024).

We debrief PMs to help them compile reports. Students write their reflection and this, plus, the PM’s, is shared with the programme lead. We get student updates at bi-monthly Course Management meetings. 93% of students have progressed without further incident. Occasionally students require regular meetings with PMs, providing continuous support and guidance for 12 months or more.

To date, 30 PMs have worked with 74 students across eight programmes. Understanding patient/carer perspectives significantly enhances students’ reflective practice (Stanford medicine 2025). Recognising the impact of their actions on patients/carers often leads our students to reassess and modify their behaviour. The PMs have gone on to sit on and work with the Health and Conduct Committee (H&CC) on more serious student cases. The committee ensures students adhere to professional standards, addressing issues of academic integrity, behaviour, and ethics and has the power to recommend the student is removed from the programme. PMs work with H&CC students over a longer period, helping them to re-evaluate their impact through a self-regulated learning approach (White 2007).

Learning from patient feedback – working towards student feedback engagement

Charlotte Eijkelboom, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Abstract: Patient feedback is increasingly important in medical education. As users of healthcare, patients can provide unique perspectives on performance. Therefore, their feedback can be complementary to faculty/peer feedback. However, feedback dialogues do not always result in learning. Students must engage with feedback for it to contribute to learning. Meaning they should seek, make sense of, and act upon feedback. Feedback engagement is partly determined by learners’ perception of feedback as a means to learn, the feedback message, and the feedback provider. We present the results of two studies that explored medical students’ perceptions of patient feedback.

First, we qualitatively studied students’ credibility judgments of patients as feedback providers. In judging patients’ credibility, students weighted aspects of their trustworthiness, competence, and goodwill. Interestingly, these credibility judgments were not fixed. Instead, they changed in response to the student-patient relationship and the feedback content.

Second, we quantitatively studied students’ general perceptions of patient feedback and their perceptions of received feedback messages. Ninety students filled in validated questionnaires before and after patient feedback training. Overall, students had positive perceptions regarding patient feedback. However, students’ perceptions became less positive after training and experience.

Patient feedback is an essential, yet not an easy way to learn. Our results show that students’ positive perceptions of patient feedback decreased. Hence, we need to longitudinally guide and support students in engaging with patient feedback, otherwise their perceptions might go further downhill. During this presentation we will discuss explanations for students’ decrease in positive perceptions and ways to reverse this.

B.7 Oral Presentations: Teaching the Social Determinants of Health

Transforming the teaching of social determinants of health: Insights from a participatory project drawing on community knowledge

Julie Masse, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada

Abstract: Teaching about the social determinants of health (SDH) is crucial to training socially engaged healthcare professionals. However, SDH education in health sciences programs is often rooted in biomedical paradigms that limit students’ critical thinking and understanding of broader health contexts. Meanwhile, some rich popular education initiatives developed by community organizations address SDH. Despite their transformative potential, these community-based initiatives are rarely disseminated outside of community settings. This presentation share practical insights from a participatory project aimed at strengthening community-university collaborations to SDH teaching in health sciences programs.

The project began with an environmental scan of community initiatives related to SDH in the Quebec City region, as well as interviews and focus groups with community (n=14) and academic (n=9) stakeholders to explore their experiences and perspectives on collaboration.

The results were discussed at a workshop involving 38 participants, including community partners, people with lived experience of poverty, and Université Laval teachers and leaders. Together they identified recommendations to support collaborations between universities and communities organizations in teaching SDH:

1. Community needs must be at the heart of any collaborative initiative.

2. Regular community-university reflexion forums must be held to nuture collaborative relationships.

3. A dedicated, co-created, and adequately resourced entity is needed to coordinate and sustain collaborations.

4. Institutional policies have to be revised to provide greater reciprocity in collaborations.

Those recommendations were formally adressed to Université Laval’s leaders. Implementing them would align with institutional priorities in terms of social responsibility in healthcare and with best practices in community-university collaboration.

Shaken and Stirred: WTPV 2015 Impacts on Social Determinants of Health Teaching at Western Sydney University School of Medicine

Brahmaputra Marjadi, University of Western Sydney, Australia

Abstract: Western Sydney University School of Medicine (WSUSOM) teaches Social Determinants of Health through Medicin in Context (MiC), our flagship community-engaed learning program, which places students in the community to witness first-hand the lived realities of their future patients. The then MiC Convenor’s attendance at WTPV 2015 has shaped philosophical and practical developments in MiC and WSUSOM curriculum in general.

WTPV 2015 inspired the MiC Team to improve our pedagogical framework in engaging with community service providers and their clients. We have been engaging community partners in reviewing our teaching and co-authoring our pedagogy publications. We improved the depth of our students’ engagement in community placements by better scaffolding of their learning and co-developing teaching innovations with community service providers. We ran eight Nominal Group Technique sessions with community partners before our MBBS to MD curriculum transition in 2018, and we have been translating those community voices into our MiC curriculum and beyond since.

Since WTPV 2015, the MiC Team has presented 24 conference papers and written seven publications; six of these papers were co-authored by community partners. We established a community of practice to amplify community voices in MiC curriculum. Our community-engaged learning practices are presented as exemplary by the Australian Medical Council in their 2023 accreditation guidelines. Our strong community-engaged pedagogy has earned Advance Higher Education Fellowships (UK) for seven teaching team members and career promotions for three. Efforts are ongoing to bring more authentic patient voices to our curriculum via Narrative Medicine and other innovations including generative AI.

Lived territories as a locus of experience-based learning of health mentors: a study on social determinants of health of HTLV infection

Milena Lisboa & Valedemar Ferreira Viana Neto, BSMPH, Brazil

Abstract: The Health Mentors Program, developed by Bahiana School of Medicine and Public Health (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil), in partnership with the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada), promotes pedagogical meetings between students and mentors, who are, in the Brazilian pilot-program, people living with the HTLV vírus. The meetings take place in their home communities, affected by socio-historical conditions of social inequality in a country with a colonial history. The city of Salvador has the highest prevalence of HTLV-I infection in Brazil, with about 50 thousand people currently living with this virus. The history of HTLV infection, linked to the slave trade in Brazil and its vertical and horizontal transmission through sexual relations over the centuries, has maintained viral transmission among black and poor people, sometimes within certain families for generations. Historical racism, which sustains the separation between whites, understood as heirs of the European oligarchy and intellectuality, and blacks, understood as direct descendants of African slaves and, therefore, poor, ends up hindering relationships between classes and racial miscegenation, promoting a gap, that isolates certain pathological conditions, especially those that are linked to sexual and affective practices. These social determinants cross the territories and lives of the people who carry the virus. In this research, we will present the meanings constructed by the mentors about the social determinants that affect their communities, including the conditions that sustain and produce the illness of black people in Brazil, in the interest of understanding the teachings by the mentors.

Listening Deeply to Patient’s Needs: Linking Undergraduate Learners with Patients Through a Win-Win Resource Navigator Service-Learning Course

Sarah Davis & Samantha Russo, University of Wisconsin, USA

Abstract: The Community Resource Navigator Program (CRNP), founded in 2016, is an innovative service-learning course that combines the theoretical frameworks of social determinants of health, systems thinking and liberation with hands-on resource navigation work. Housed within the Center for Patient Partnerships, undergraduate (U.S. based entry-level post-secondary education) students can participate for multiple semesters and receive training in interpersonal skills and cultural humility while supporting patient resource acquisition. This presentation will share the CRNP model in which students learn directly from patients about resources needs that maximize health and wellness. We will highlight specific learning that students attribute to their interactions with patients and invite participants to help us identify mechanisms to deepen this learning. Designed to situate “patients as teachers,” the course provides a scaffolded opportunity for students to gain interpersonal and leadership skills while providing relevant and available resources for patients in medical and community-based settings. The CRNP has proven to be an essential resource for patients in our university’s metro area. If patients from Medical-School run, free-care clinic decide to become a client of the program, navigators then call regularly to provide needed resources and check-in. Clients are provided with relevant resources, and validation that their struggles have complex root causes. The liberation model grounds Navigators and clients as equals, working together to navigate complex social service and benefits systems while building more robust community resource networks. After participating in CRNP, Navigators reported increased understanding and importance of social determinants of health, greater cultural awareness, and enhanced communication skills.

B.8 Visual Arts: Non-video

Who do you see? Unmasking the lived experience of aging with unstable housing

Martina Kelly & Lara Nixon, University of Calgary, Canada

Abstract: Older adults are among the largest and fastest-growing populations facing housing instability. Aging in insecure housing is linked to poor health, which is often exacerbated by a limited understanding of the structural barriers contributing to precarious housing, such as traumatic life and care experiences, chronic physical and mental health issues, social stigma, and isolation.  In this immersive visual arts presentation, we invite participants to ‘see’ older people with experiences of housing precarity (OPEHP) not as part of the ‘silver tsunami’ or as individuals to be avoided on the sidewalk, but rather as people with complex and diverse lives.

Our presentation will feature three interconnected, interactive displays, creating multiple entry points and inviting participants to engage with the exhibit from various perspectives.  One display will present demographic and epidemiological data, along with a policy and systems analysis related to older homelessness in Canada. Another display will showcase handcrafted masks (12 in total), representing both the outer and inner experiences of OPEHP. These masks were created by co-participants as part of a participatory research study exploring the lived experiences of a group of OPEHP, self-named the ‘Exchange’. The third display will provide reflective and crafting prompts for participants to write, doodle, or draw in response to (or in anticipation of) what they see. Materials will be available on a table in front of the display. We propose mask-making as powerful conduits for deeper reflection on ‘othered’ experiences.

Exceptionally Rare, Domestic Routines in Rare Disease Families

Krystle Schofield, Victoria, Canada

Abstract: Rare disease families often undergo massive transformations in their domestic routines to support a family member living with a rare condition. These adapted “normals” require various levels of support and understanding from siblings, extended family members, friends and community, home care providers and beyond. This ongoing series of documentary photographs explores the routines and events of various families from the rare disease community in British Columbia. It asks questions like; what resources are involved? How are siblings included and supported? How does traditional work get done? How does the design of the home support care? How is youth education adapted?

In this proposed Visual Arts presentation, I will share the following:

A series of documentary photographs that offer a window into domestic care and routines, coupled with audio that highlights key moments in the daily unscripted life of rare disease families. (10 minutes)

A reflective discussion about the photographs. (10 minutes)

These photographs are part of a self-funded photography project by Krystle Schofield, a rare disease mom, documentary photographer and digital storytelling facilitator.

B9 Roundtable Discussion:

Believe Me – Health Equity for Gender and Sexual Diverse Communities

Ben Keane O’Hara & Lydia Luk, Health Equity Collaborative & PeerNetBC, Canada

Abstract: Sexual and gender diverse communities in British Columbia experience significant health disparities when compared to the general population. Intersecting oppressions among sexual and gender diverse people who are also Indigenous, Black, Multiracial and People of Colour (POC) can result in further negative impact. These may include historic and ongoing colonization, racism, and intergenerational or multigenerational experiences of trauma and genocide.

PeerNetBC anchored a five-year community led and collaborative project, called Health Equity Collaborative (HEC). The project brought together people with lived experience as well as allies working in health care, research, and in the community for a participatory consultation process designed to understand the issues surrounding health equity. In the final 2 years the HEC focused energy on the qualitative study on health barriers with a unique focus marginalized communities with an intersectional analysis – stories and experiences of sexual and gender diverse folks who are also Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPoC). HEC created a community-based report providing recommendations to increase health equity. 

While this report was published in 2020, with current conditions in our world, the “Believe Me” report stands as an important and relevant insight to inform our health care systems, providers and community members.