Learning lived experience: strategies to support medicine students to learn from the patient as a person

This presentation reports on a key finding of a year-long evaluation of the longitudinal rural stream of the Flinders University Doctor of Medicine program. The evaluation collected input from 63 program members (students, administrators, clinical supervisors and educators) using a participatory visual mapping method to explore how the clinical learning experience might be enhanced. The evaluation found that there was something critical missing from the students’ learning picture: the voice and context of the lived experience of the patient themselves, as a person living in a rural community. This presentation examines some of the ways that this important perspective might be foregrounded in the rural clinical learning curriculum, including: incorporating patient feedback in the clinic; non-clinical community attachments; continuity of care strategies; consumer representation; and, ultimately, reframing the student–patient relationship towards a truly person-centred learning model where the patient is a person and a partner in the teaching community.