Including Patient Voices in Continuing Medical Education: One Provider's Experience

Jennifer McKay; Emma Needham; Wendy Walsh

doi:10.1080/28338073.2023.2275504

Including Patient Voices in Continuing Medical Education: One Provider's Experience

J CME. 2023 Nov 5;12(1):2275504. doi: 10.1080/28338073.2023.2275504. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Jennifer McKay¹, Emma Needham², Wendy Walsh³

Affiliations

¹ Editorial Operations, Content Management Analyst - CME/CPD, Wolters Kluwer, Waltham, MA, USA.
² Editorial Operations, Content Editing Coordinator - Pediatrics, CME, Wolters Kluwer, Waltham, MA, USA.
³ Editorial Operations, Editorial Consultant, Wolters Kluwer, Waltham, MA, USA.

Abstract

In 2021, UpToDate began offering continuing medical education (CME) planned and delivered by patients. The patient-authored medical topic reviews focus on lessons learned from interactions with the healthcare system and emphasise quality of life for those living with specific conditions. Having access to the patient voice at the point of care provides clinicians with a perspective that can improve patient-provider communication and promote shared decision-making. Participants who viewed the patient-authored topics were emailed a survey about the content; several responses indicated that the new topics were useful in clinical practice. While positive responses demonstrate that clinicians value the patient perspective, we also received replies from participants and from the patient authors themselves indicating there is more work to be done in developing patient-led CME. As more patients are invited to join the conversation, their expertise will be increasingly recognised as integral to CME.

Keywords: Continuing medical education; continuing education; patient engagement; patient involvement; patient perspective; patient voice; point-of-care education.