Financial support is provided as an Educational Grant by Pfizer Limited to enable Patients Know Best to employ a full-time equivalent project manager for a 2-year post to support the deployment of the Patients Know Best (PKB) MedEd Programme Initiative for academic institutions
Students at Newcastle University School of Medical Education in both Newcastle Upon Tyne and Malaysia have gone live using the PKB platform to remotely practise consultation skills and to gain confidence in collaborating with patients on their care.
Starting in February, first year medical students at Newcastle will be using the PKB platform with our ‘simulated model’. Module leads have created case studies of patients for whom students will be able to view care plans, input medications and view test results.
This work will be part of a cross-campus learning tool with NUMed Malaysia – an international branch campus – which provides medical and biomedical degree programmes equivalent to those of Newcastle University’s UK-based provision, but contextualised for Malaysia.
GP Senior Lecturer at Newcastle Medical School Dr Cathy Williamson said:
"Newcastle University Medical School is excited to begin working with Patients Know Best this academic year. Our team has been creating simulated educational patient records for Year 1 medical students to access and become familiar with using as an adjunct to their studies. Soon we will begin reaching out to patients across our region to invite them to create their own educational patient record and enable future interaction with Year 2 medical students in an online digital environment using the PKB educational platform. We anticipate this will give students a great opportunity to meet patients and build new skills that will be essential for doctors in the future."
PKB is delighted that the platform can be so easily engaged with between the two campuses to allow for shared learning.
In the future it is hoped that the platform can be used between different Schools and Universities to enable interprofessional learning, which we know can promote knowledge exchange and have positive impacts on patient outcomes.
Looking ahead to future academic years, the team at Newcastle Medical School are keen to allow students to engage remotely with patient volunteers via the PKB online platform. PKB provides choice and flexibility to partners who wish to use the platform with their students through deployment models that work for them.
PKB Medical Education lead Olivia Kennedy said:
“We are proud to have the University of Newcastle as our latest Education partner and are thrilled be working with such varied groups of students as part of this work”
