Sweety Jain, MD
Lehigh Valley Family Medicine Residency Program
Allentown, PA
Adapted from presentation at STFM Annual Conference,
2011, New Orleans
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Established 3 years ago at the LVHFMR
Funded by Kenneth B. Schwartz Center
Initially a 1 hour program, now expanded to
3 hour sessions
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Medical Students rotating in Departments of
Family Medicine, Pediatrics, Internal
Medicine and OBGYN
Family Medicine residents through their
initial ‘Foundations’ month or subsequently
in the learning labs
Clinical staff (Nurses, Nurse Practitioners)
Faculty Physicians
Non clinical staff (Front desk receptionists,
insurance coordinators, social workers,
medical records personnel)
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Patients with Disabilities
Parents of children with special needs
Family Medicine Faculty
Members from the local Advocacy groups
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Experience of being taught by patients
increases the confidence, decreases the
anxiety and generates new insights (Wyurz
and Kelly)
Parent to Parent of Vermont and University of
Vermont College of Medicine collaborated
and medical students partnered with families:
the program received very positive
evaluations
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A 3 hour session
Held in a room that can accommodate 12-15
people and is accessible
Trainers are prepared initially through a
‘Train the Trainers’ sessions (3 hours X 2
sessions)
Pre and post training material, evaluation
tools developed
Part I:
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Completing the pre training questionnaires
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Completing the media participation forms
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Introductions and individual experiences
with people with ID/DD
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Presentations by parent and patient
educators(with emphasis on their
accomplishments and focus on their health
care needs)
Part II:
 The ‘Person First’ Language
 Video ‘The Ten Commandments’ of Disability
Etiquette
 Interactive discussion related to the video and
its application to the health care profession
Part III: Abilities versus Disabilities
 You Tube videos, e.g. Chinese deaf dancers
 Craft work ‘Quilling’, greeting cards made by
the patient educator
 Art work, sculpture, poetry and other
creations by son (acquired brain injury) of the
parent educator
 Art work from Georgemendoza.com
 Face book page
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Pre training Questionnaire
Post training Questionnaire
Quality of training Survey
Narrative reflection
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Knowledge based
A set of 6 questions, on both sides of the
same sheet to maintain consistency in
improvement of scores for each participant
Quality assessment survey has Likert style
questions as well as qualitative items
Narratives written immediately after the
session, 1 page or less in length
Likert style rating questions:
a) Trainers, b) Video, c) Discussion
 Total number 44
 Trainers average 4.85
 Video average 4.65
 Discussion average 4.73
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Open ended questions:
#1:
 89% students stated that they were
uncomfortable interacting with patients with
disabilities prior to the training.
 Of these 73% indicated their primary concern
was treating the disabled patient differently
and insulting them
#2:
Demonstrated a clear preference on learning
etiquette by content focusing on practical tips
(52%) and instructional delivery by a patient
with a disability (39%) over other delivery
methods.
#3:
When asked what they would like to see
changed about the training, the two most
frequently cited suggestions were:
1)
more time for discussion and patient/trainer
interaction (30%),
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Role playing healthcare interactions (16%).
#4:
Effectiveness of the program: 98% responded
the program was beneficial either by
increasing overall awareness and sensitivity
(52%) or increasing competency for future
interactions with patients with special needs
(46%)
With Art Therapists:
Charlotte Carey-Boothe
Jody Matthews
Renzo grouting the guitar mosaic with Charlotte, Art Therapist
The Key to Love is Crooked
Towers in heaven
What color is the wind?
Candles in the wind
http://georgemendoza.com/painter/
I found this session to be incredibly powerfulthere are few times that I can remember being
absolutely speechless, and this was one of
them!
I realized the importance of education in
helping people with disabilities and the true
harm of ignorance
Often these seemingly common sense issues
such as simple etiquette are lost in the hustle
and bustle of an outpatient clinic practice and
are confounded with our lack of expertise
I enjoyed the speakers; words of reflections
from experiences of overcoming the challenges
in peoples’ lives first hand is better than any
lecture!
This was a very profound session, one in fact
that often brought tears to my eyes. I will hold
these stories in my heart as I progress through
my medical training. Additionally, the Ten
Commandments described are outstanding tools
that should be kept on every medical students’
white coat or name tag
This was a great experience. With the stress of
medical school-trying to memorize a billion facts and
figures it is easy to forget why we decided to become
physicians in the first place. Listening to everyone
share their stories really helped me to remember why
and to feel excited about the impact I will have on
patients and their families. Thank you so much!
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Department of Family Medicine, Lehigh Valley
Health Network
Kenneth B. Schwartz Center
MHP team members
Research Team at LVHN-Nyann Biery, Susan
Hansen
Sue Turi, Administrative support to P-DAT
Parent and Patient Partners, P-DAT - Cheryl
Dougan,Lori deturck,Rebecca Dubin, Fran
Salerno