E.1 Symposium:
The PULPIT consortium: European insights on patient and public involvement in interprofessional undergraduate health professions education
Matthijs Bosveld, Dante Mulder, Maastricht University, the Netherlands & Pedro Morgado, University Minho, Portugal & Ricardo Ferreira, Nursing School of Lisbon, Portugal & Cathy Kline, University of British Columbia, Canada
Abstract: The PULPIT-consortium promotes patient and public involvement (PPI) in the interprofessional education (IPE) of undergraduate healthcare students. This initiative addresses students’ limited early contact with patients and their lack of understanding of patient-centered care and collaboration amongst healthcare professionals. Through different scientific activities, the consortium has been investigating the current state of PPI in IPE of undergraduate healthcare student in different European countries.
This symposium begins with an introduction to the consortium’s objectives and composition, offering attendees a clear framework to understand PULPIT’s commitment to advancing PPI in IPE. Participants will then be presented with findings from an international survey mapping the current state of PPI in IPE across several European countries. Best practices and strategies that have effectively addressed barriers and supported implementation have been investigated and aggregated results will be shared. This provides practical approaches for integration in diverse educational settings.
The symposium will also highlight results from a focus group study involving students, academic staff, and patient representatives from four European countries. This segment gives attendees valuable insight into stakeholder experiences and perspectives. Building on all prior findings, international recommendations were developed and validated through a Delphi study – which will be presented to guide the development and integration of PPI in IPE.
The symposium concludes with an integrative round-table discussion, fostering dialogue and reflection. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of the value of PPI in interprofessional education and be equipped with evidence-informed strategies to enhance patient and public involvement in their own teaching and learning environments.
E.2 Symposium:
Integrating Patient Educators into Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences Education: Advancing Patient-Centered Care and Drug Development
Dominick Salvatore, Maureen Knell, University of Missouri-Kansas, Michael Blank, Suzanne Schrandt, USA.
Abstract: This panel presentation explores integrating patient educators into two different types of medication-related courses to enhance student learning in clinical direct patient care and drug development. The program includes three 30-minutes segments.
Part 1 features two pharmacy faculty members and a patient educator who will present an overview of a pharmacy skills lab activity for third-year Doctor of Pharmacy students. In this telemedicine-based lab, students interview arthritis patients, collect health data, and develop a treatment plan, with the patient educator sharing personal experiences and insights to help students understand chronic illness challenges. Survey results show positive student responses, highlighting improved clinical skills, communication, and patient-centered care awareness. The patient educator will share insights into benefits for patient educator participation.
Part 2 highlights a graduate professor’s overview of a biologics-focused drug development course for the treatment of immune-mediated diseases that incorporates a patient educator with rheumatoid arthritis. The patient educator shares her journey, from functional loss to the impact of biologics, and discusses the evolving role of patient engagement in research and regulatory processes. This enhances students’ understanding of the patient’s role in drug development and ensures future treatments prioritize the patient experience and their real-world needs. Part 3 concludes with an interactive panel discussion in an audience questions and answer format, featuring instructors from both courses and a patient educator. This discussion answer audience questions and will offer insights into the benefits and challenges of integrating patient voices in pharmacy skills and biomedical sciences education.
E.3 Workshop:
Co-creating patient simulation scenarios – The Co-design Card Game
Katie Campion, St George’s University, UK
Abstract: The use of patient simulation as a learning tool is growing in health professional education. Involving patients in creating simulations is an important way of developing scenarios that are authentic and holistic. However, ‘how’ we should do this is unexplored and undescribed. Our research project brought together patients, actors, educators and learners to investigate how to co-create patient simulation scenarios. Focus groups with individual groups helped us to understand diverse starting perspectives. Then we brought everyone together at a large co-design event to create new scenarios together. We used creative enquiry methods from graphic medicine and narrative medicine to support the process and level the epistemological playing field. This included using I-poems and student illustrations as a starting provocation to bring to light the different perspectives in the room.
Creating a successful co-design event involved a lot of decisions. How do we create a space for all to contribute? Who should be involved? How can we recruit a diverse group? What should payment look like? How do we incorporate the creative aspects? The answers to these questions can be impacted by discomfort clinicians feel when working in authentic partnership with patients and sharing power.
To explore these tensions we have co-created a card game with patients and students involved in the project. In this 90min workshop small teams will design their own co-design event. Discussions at decision points throughout the workshop aims to create productive debate, surface assumptions and empower participants in the next steps of their own projects.
E.4 Workshop:
From Presence to Partnership: Embedding Patient and Family Voices in the Heart of Continuing Professional Development
Holly Harris, David Wiljer, Laura Williams, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Canada
Abstract: There is increasing recognition that engaging patients and families in health professional education, including continuing professional development (CPD), can have transformative impacts. It improves educational outcomes and strengthens the overall healthcare system by promoting a culture of collaboration and mutual respect. Despite growing recognition, many health professional educators struggle to secure organizational buy-in and support for moving beyond one-off consultations with patients and families toward co-producing a culture of equitable partnership.
In this workshop, we will discuss effective ways to articulate the value of patient and family engagement in CPD and explore engagement strategies that foster power sharing and shared decision making. This workshop will be facilitated by a panel of individuals who leverage their lived expertise related to pediatrics, mental health, and aging to foster broader engagement strategies in their roles as health educators.
Through practical examples of patient and family engagement, participants will explore the six key domains of patient knowledge, illustrating how engagement fosters reflection, clarifies focus, challenges existing constructs, and motivates healthcare professionals. The workshop will also introduce critical reflexivity as a practical strategy for fostering the conditions for meaningful engagement through challenging assumptions, reflecting on identities and power dynamics, and aligning actions with the principles of equity and inclusion. Case examples and reflection questions will be provided to help participants apply these concepts in their practice. By the end of the session, participants will be equipped to effectively advocate for and implement meaningful approaches to patient and family engagement in CPD.
E.5 Workshop:
Power in Preparation: Empowering Patient Partners and Faculty with Tools for Confident Storytelling and Meaningful Participation in Health Education
Mandy Young, University of British Columbia & Connie Evans, BC Institute of Technology, Canada
Abstract: Patient Partners play a vital role in health professional education by sharing their lived experiences to inform and inspire future healthcare providers. To support their meaningful participation, we co-created two practical tools: a Storytelling Guide and a Session Preparation Checklist.
The Storytelling Guide empowers Patient Partners to share their personal stories in ways that are impactful, authentic, and audience-appropriate. It provides strategies for shaping narratives, handling Q&A sessions, navigating challenging questions, and tailoring key messages while prioritizing the storyteller’s well-being. Designed to build confidence, the guide emphasizes the importance of intention, preparation, and ending on a hopeful note to leave a lasting impression on learners.
The Session Preparation Checklist outlines key details Patient Partners need before, during, and after their involvement in teaching sessions. It helps faculty educators clearly communicate expectations, timelines, roles, and logistics. Using a checklist creates a positive, supportive experience that encourages continued engagement and builds trust between Patient Partners and academic teams.
This interactive workshop invites participants to explore these tools, reflect on their own practices, and engage in a collaborative activity to co-create a shared collection of best practices. Together, we aim to strengthen support for Patient Partners across diverse education settings through practical strategies, mutual learning, and dialogue.
E.6 Oral Presentations: Institutional Change
Resting on our laurels: Why we need to go beyond patient involvement to lived experience leadership in health professional education
Brett Scholz, Australian National University, Australia.
Abstract: It has been over two decades since the world’s first “consumer academic” position was established in a mental health nursing program. Since then, scholarship on patient engagement in health education has grown exponentially. Recently, some have even suggested we are now in a ‘participatory era,’ marked by increasing emphasis on co-design, co-production, and consumer engagement.
This trend is encouraging but concerning: it masks the growing tokenism excluding patients from leadership in education, and risks overstating the extent to which people working from lived experience perspectives truly influence decision-making. Framing engagement as novel can obscure the long history of lived experience advocacy and leadership, and may contribute to ongoing epistemic injustice. Despite longstanding calls for lived experience leadership, most documented examples remain confined to consumer-run organisations, with minimal presence in mainstream health education.
This presentation provides a review of recent trends in publications on patient involvement in health professional education. It maps these trends against the seminal co-produced COMMUNE guidelines for best practice in development and delivery of education in partnership with people working from lived experiential expertise. The findings suggest that patient involvement alone is insufficient; meaningful transformation requires shifting power to people with lived experience to lead the development, delivery, and evaluation of education.
The implications of these findings involve practical steps educators and other stakeholders can take to move toward models grounded in lived experience leadership. These include guidance for increasing honesty and transparency around power-sharing in partnerships between lived experience educators and others.
From Testimonial Delivery to Shared Leadership: 15 Years of Patient Partnership in Action
Annie Descoteaux, Claudio Del Grande, Marie-Pierre Codsi, Université de Montreal, Canada
Abstract : For the past 15 years, patient partners, have been involved in teaching interprofessional collaboration within the PARTENAIRES Training Program at Université de Montréal. We wish to share our own perspective as patients, in order to reflect on our growing involvement and the evolving contribution we have made throughout this journey.
Launched in 2010 as a cross-disciplinary, small-group learning initiative across five disciplines, the program now includes 13 disciplines and annually engages over 5,000 students, 125 patient partners, and 125 clinical co-facilitators. This presentation aims to outline our journey as patient partners from occasional storytellers to central figures in the co-creation and co-delivery of this three-course curriculum. Over time, patient roles expanded to include curriculum design, facilitation, evaluation and continuous improvement, as well as leadership—culminating in a patient-professional co-directorship. Our experience shows that patient partnership in interprofessional education is not only feasible at scale, but vital for fostering authentic interprofessional collaboration. Trusting the process remains key to cultural transformation.
We will share the evolution of the PARTENAIRES model from our perspective as patient partners, focusing on the relational, pedagogical, and structural shifts that made it what it is today.
Expanding Patient and Public Involvement in Health Professions Education Through Micro-Innovations
Kim Osborn, Jessica Rokicki-Parashar, Erika Schillinger, Stanford University, USA
Abstract: Intro: Over the past decade, Stanford University School of Medicine’s Patient and Family Engaged Medical Education Program has expanded from a single patient-initiated course to 14 courses, engaging over 1,500 pre-clerkship students. This growth was driven by curricular and operational micro-innovations—small, incremental changes that amplify patient and family voices in medical education and initiate organizational culture change.
Objective: This presentation shares initial findings from a retrospective impact evaluation of the Patient and Family Engaged Medical Education Program (2015–2024). We will discuss how micro-innovations have informed decisions on patient and public involvement in teaching.
Methods: We are conducting a retrospective impact evaluation based on participant survey data from students, patients, faculty, and staff, as well as course and program evaluations. We are analyzing these data to gain insights for the development of new courses, patient involvement, and participant training.
Preliminary Results: Physician-patient communication and compassionate care are consistently identified as important in health professional education. Patient feedback highlights the importance of clear expectations on involvement scope, time commitment, and “fit” between patient expertise and teaching opportunity. Faculty surveys reveal a consistent need to remove logistical barriers, and learner feedback is consistently positive with respect to patient involvement.
Next Steps: A deliberate strategy of supporting and evaluating micro-innovations has allowed our program to promote patient involvement in health professions education. Programmatic analysis will highlight opportunities for future efforts to both increase and sustain patient involvement’s impact.
Holding Hope: From Inclusion to Co-Creation in Patient-Led Education and System Reform
Shannon Calvert, National Eating Disorder Collaborative, Australia
Abstract: This presentation shares the development and educational relevance of Holding Hope, a lived experience-led initiative reimagining care for individuals with longstanding eating disorders. While centred on eating disorders, the values and innovations within this work resonate across broader health and social care contexts—particularly for individuals navigating complex or life-limiting conditions, where traditional models may fall short.
Initiated through national collaboration and shaped by deep insights from people with lived and loved experiences, Holding Hope responds to long-voiced concerns about recovery-focused systems that overlook quality of life. The original discussion paper (Calvert & NEDC, 2023) advocated for a trauma-informed, dignity-led approach. Building on this foundation, a co-developed Guide now offers practical, person-centred tools for care planning, education, and ethical reflection—supporting autonomy, relational safety, and collaborative decision-making.
Holding Hope’s project lead, a Lived Experience Educator, will share how lived experience leadership can shift education from inclusion to authentic co-creation, and how patient voices can be embedded into systems reform, interprofessional learning, and continuing professional development. The Guide is being integrated into education, workforce, and service delivery initiatives in Australia and offers a scalable model for adaptation across disciplines and geographies.
Drawing on lessons from lived experience and interdisciplinary collaboration, this session offers educators, clinicians, students, and policymakers a values-based framework for embedding patient-led tools in education and system change. By placing the patient’s voice at the centre, Holding Hope demonstrates what becomes possible when systems are shaped not only for—but with—the people they serve.
E.7 Visual Arts & Roundtable: Difficult Conversations
Visual Arts: Hard Choices, Lots of Love: Educating Health Providers on the Experiences of MAiD Family Caregivers Through Digital Storytelling
Mike Lang, University of Calgary, Canada
Abstract: Over 60,000 Canadians have utilized Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) since the passing of Bill C-16 in 2016. This means at least 400,000 Canadians have been directly impacted by MAID as close friends or family members. In most cases, these family caregivers bear both the logistical and emotional burden of these decisions made by their loved ones, even when receiving support from the healthcare system. Furthermore, the current cultural conversation concerning MAID is polarized, leading to fear, uncertainty, and experiences of stigmatization. Healthcare professionals need to understand the physical, mental, and emotional strain of caring for a loved one who chooses MAID. This presentation will begin by providing a very brief overview of the Digital Storytelling process and the SSHRC funded study that supported the creation of 12 digital stories with MAID Family Caregivers. It will then screen two digital stories with each followed by audience discussion about the lessons in the stories. Attendees will leave with a greater understanding of the lived experiences of MAID family caregivers and have direct access to digital stories that could be utilized in their own educational contexts.
Roundtable Discussion: Speaking the Unspeakable: Centering Patient and Family Voices in Education on Serious Illness and End-of-Life Care
Dannell Shu, Gitanjli Arora, Esther Lee, Matthew Park, Arika Patneaude, Judy So, Naomi Goloff
Abstract: Serious illness and death remain subject matter that is marginalized or avoided in health professions education. Yet these occurrences are a part of providing medical care both in pediatric and adult contexts. This roundtable examines strategies for medical educators to incorporate the perspectives of bereaved family members and seriously ill patients—including children—into teaching about emotionally complex and often taboo aspects of healthcare, such as end-of-life care, medical uncertainty, and profound suffering.
Facilitators will draw from an educational model that engages bereaved family educators as partners in end-of-life and serious illness care training. The discussion will also examine ways to incorporate the voice of patients—for both adults and children—living with serious illness, while navigating ethical tensions around representation, agency, and emotional safety.
Participants will engage in reflective dialogue about institutional and cultural barriers to teaching about serious illness and death; the responsibilities and risks of inviting lived experience into the classroom; and opportunities for co-creating curricula that are relational, reflective, and emotionally honest. This session is designed to move beyond silence and discomfort, and toward pedagogy grounded in courage, compassion, and co-production to better prepare clinicians to be present with, support, and guide patients and families experiencing the serious illness.
E.8: Performance Arts: Narratives of Experience
Why Me? Examining the Patient Partner’s role in post secondary health education.
Brenda Jones, Vancouver, Canada
Abstract: Involving patient partners in post secondary health care education is gaining interest with program administrators and educators to enhance patient and family centred learning. In this creative arts presentation, video collages featuring three post secondary education instructors in health science programs comment on the role and impact of patient partners. Between the videos, dramatic monologues written and performed by the workshop facilitator will give the patient partner’s perspectives on participating in educational programs. The topics of the videos and the dramatic monologues include becoming a patient partner, expectations and value from being a patient partner, and impact of patient partner participation. This workshop will be of general interest to all participants as it is inspiring for anyone planning for Patient partner participation and encouraging for patient partners who participate or want to participate in education programs.
How can we cultivate emotional intelligence among health care students?
Knut Eliassen, University of Bergen, Norway
Abstract: Is it possible to give health care students insight into suffering, so they can recognize patients’ feelings, making it easier to act empathetically and patient-centred? Here, I am presenting an essay intertwining two narratives. One an historical account of a fictive ship sailing from India to England in 1864. The other my own story – a Norwegian experienced general practitioner, reflecting upon the journey from being born, becoming a medical student who got cancer, to survive, and altering perspectives towards myself, my patients and my work, now as both a doctor and a medical educator.
The ship encounters challenges during its voyage, including loss of life and cargo, likening the ship’s struggles to my own life experiences marked by personal loss, suffering and disease, but also healing and hope.
Wounded healers have a good understanding of being patients themselves and may use this in patient care and teaching. I raise the question whether and how it is possible for students to understand suffering and get emotional insight without them having to be wounded healers themselves. Can we make students comfortable in using their own stories, and their own moral and emotional compasses also in their professional lives?
A Poetic Expression: Interprofessional and Person-Centred Care
Kateryna Metersky, CACHE, Toronto, Canada
Abstract: Introduction: Poetry can be considered one approach to teaching through aesthetics. Incorporating poetry into teaching can help attendees foster an emotional connection to content, gain a better understanding of interprofessional and person-centered care, and improve patient care experiences. When the educator is also the writer of such poetry and includes the multiple roles they hold in society to explicate a theoretical topic in nursing, this brings benefit to the learners as they are hearing from real-life experience. The aim of this presentation is to perform a poetic expression piece written to help learners understand key competencies of interprofessional and person-centered care.
Methods: In poetic prose, the author used her expertise as a researcher, current nursing practice and personal experience of being a patient to emphasize what is important from the patient’s point of view when receiving care from an interprofessional team of healthcare providers.
Results: Using the “collective voice” of patients, the poem details what both the patient and the healthcare providers can do to enhance person-centered care delivery, to see the patient behind the condition, and create a better healthcare system.
Discussion: The use of poetry provides valuable insight for current and future healthcare providers to understand what the patient is feeling, reflect on their current practices, and strategize ways to improve care. This performative art-piece invites attendees to consider their own understanding of and approaches to interprofessional and person-centered care to provide better experiences going forward.
E.9 Oral & Roundtable
Oral: Co-Production and Ethical Data Stewardship in Equity Deserving Groups: Promoting a Just Culture in Healthcare with Patients and Resident Physicians
Aliya Kassam & Fatima Duaa, University of Calgary, Canada
Abstract: This session explores Just Culture—a framework fostering non-punitive environments in healthcare—through a health equity perspective. We will present theoretical insights from a patient-oriented study examining the perspectives of Just Culture among patient and resident physician populations—who despite experiencing power differentials are often overlooked in safety culture initiatives.
The session will provide you with strategies to meaningfully engage patients and providers from equity denied groups as partners in safety initiatives, building trust, and addressing power imbalances.
Join us as we highlight the importance of ethical data stewardship and intersectionality in the co-production and adaptation of the Just Culture Assessment Tool (JCAT).
Through storytelling and design thinking, participants will examine how a Just Culture in healthcare could be designed from a health equity perspective. Participants will have the opportunity to learn how to co-produce safe and equitable healthcare practices by considering systemic, structural and cultural, barriers and facilitators.
Our presentation will be co-designed with partners to ensure patient and resident physician priorities are being supported and measured. We will present digital story telling products of knowledge from our partners sharing their insights from working together on the project as well as our research findings.
Harnessing Our Collective Wisdom to Create Meaningful Change: Embedding the Patient Voice in Health Education Curriculum
Sam Belbin, Diana Ermel, Kimberley Sears, Queen’s University, Canada
Abstract: Health systems in Canada recognize that advancing patient-centred care requires meaningful and collaborative patient and care partner engagement in governance, design, and service delivery. Evidence demonstrates these partnerships enhance patient and provider experiences, improve outcomes, strengthen quality and safety, and reduce costs.
Healthcare professionals play a key role in this transformation, yet patient engagement competencies are not consistently taught in undergraduate health education programs. To embed patient- and family-centred care into the system, patients and families must be integrated into health education curricula as co-designers and co-educators. While some efforts exist in Canada, scaling them up presents challenges. What barriers prevent widespread adoption?
Our SPOR Evidence Alliance-funded, patient-led project, Patient Engagement in Health Education Curriculum, explored this issue. We conducted a scoping review to identify governance structures and processes that support patient partnerships in curriculum co-design, implementation, and evaluation. The review was guided by the question: What are the structural barriers and facilitators to engaging patients in developing health education? Current practices were analyzed and highlighted the importance of integrating patient and family voices to align education to better reflect patient-centred care principles. Join us for a World Café Workshop as we share insights from our review and collaborate on actionable solutions. Together, we will identify structures/processes needed to amplify the patient voice across health sciences programs—addressing real-world challenges, communication gaps, and health disparities. By co-creating a roadmap to embed meaningful patient partnerships in education, we aim to equip future healthcare professionals to deliver compassionate, equitable, and patient-centred care