Patient Educators

I've spent quite a bit of time over the past couple of weeks across the street at the Midwestern University Dental and Eye Institutes, and I have to say I'm impressed (and not just because I'm contractually obligated to be by the folks who sign my paychecks).

If you didn't already know, the Glendale Campus-based Dental Institute and Eye Institute are "learning clinics," where students work with faculty to provide care. It's fantastic for the students because they get practical experience under the tutelage of experienced practitioners - some of whom have decades of private practice experience under their belts. Nothing is better than hands-on work on live patients to help students prove theory learned in labs... not to mention help them learn a good chairside manner.

The downside, of course, is that they are still students, which means they don't necessarily know or aren't experienced enough to apply the quickest methods of providing treatment. That means that appointments at the Dental Institute and Eye Institute will take longer than at a regular private practice.

You want to know the amazing part? The patients don't seem to mind.

Personally, I'm a notoriously impatient and nervous patient. I hate waiting in waiting rooms while the anticipation over what those docs are going to do to me builds like an inflating zeppelin in my chest. And once I'm in the chair, I want to be out of it as soon as humanly possible. Extrapolating my own experience out to the patients at the Dental and Eye Institutes, I used to wonder how the patients there could stand the longer appointment times.

Well, silly me - it turns out that not only do the patients stand the longer waits and more drawn out procedures, they enjoy them... and they come back, in larger numbers every month.

Why? Because the patients love working with the students, for one thing. One patient I spoke to said that getting treated by students feels more personal. The students are careful and pay keen attention to detail, and they stick with you through the whole procedure - a refreshing change from what one of my medically-inclined relatives calls "drive-by patient care." Plus, experienced faculty doctors are always on hand to supervise and monitor every patient case, providing initial case assessments and re-checks to ensure that student work is done properly.

The patients also appreciate their role in helping to train the students. In fact, the patients feel a little bit like de facto members of the faculty - educating the students by being their care subjects, so to speak. It gives the patients an investment in their own care that might be lacking elsewhere. They're not just ciphers in a sea of paperwork; they are involved, part of the learning process. That is valuable for the patients (and, I suspect, it helps distract them from some of the less pleasant aspects of their treatment).

What results is a sense of collaborative effort and trust that reassures everyone involved. The students work on people who know and accept their professional limitations, and the patients know that the students compensate for their inexperience with diligence.

It's a unique environment, to be sure. Everyone seems to leave happy, though. If that isn't success, what is?

(Author's Note: The Midwestern University Dental Institute began tandem faculty-student treatment in June 2010. The Midwestern University Eye Institute will utilize students as observers to patient care until July 2011, when third-year optometry students will be available to begin tandem treatment with faculty.)