Welcome to the 21st WCP Virtual Congress Program Scheduling

Abstract Body

In Derby, UK we have a long-established program to involve people with lived experience of mental illness in medical students' teaching. We work collaboratively with a group of around 50 people, who refer to themselves as 'Expert Patients' and who teach medical students to help them develop their skills and broaden their knowledge.
The teaching sessions have always been face to face. Due to Covid- 19, students’ exposure to clinical activity was significantly limited due to cancellations of non-urgent outpatient clinics and also on account of self-isolation amongst medical students. Moreover, most face to face clinics were replaced with remote telephone or video consultations. There are additional challenges of maintaining information governance for students attending clinical activity remotely. We set up innovative weekly virtual Expert Patient clinics to provide remote clinical experience to medical students. These “clinic” sessions are co-led by Expert Patient and Clinical educators. The feedback has been extremely positive. Virtual EP clinics offer several advantages: 1) Technical skills such as history taking, for o mental state examination, and formulating a management plan can be imparted in an “authentic” clinical setting albeit one that has been set-up specifically for the purpose of medical education. 2) EPs’ input can be tailored to meet students’ desired learning outcomes 3) Safe environment for both learners and for EPs

This session will be facilitated by an MDT team of educators who will a) discuss how to set up a teaching programme collaboratively with EPs’ involvement; b) provide examples of EP involvement in training and assessment .We will also share practical tips and guidance on involving patients (and carers) in training and assessment. which will help educators from all specialties.