Patient as Educator: A Pearl in Medical Education

Introduction: One of the important goals of modern medical education is to change the role of patients in education from passive to active. One of the new educational methods is the "patient as educator" method. This study was conducted for investigating the effect of using the patient as educator method on medical students . Methods: : his study was conducted in a semi-experimental intervention method with 56 medical studentsof Imam Reza Hospital, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. 2 menopausal women, as patient educators, participated in the training course on the important points of history taking and examination in menopausal women. Demographic information of the students, including age, gender, and mean of scores, was collected. Then the students were divided into two groups. The control group received the usual method of training in the department. In the intervention group, a one-hour training session was held with the presence of the patient and the history taking and examination by the medical students and then by the patient, feedback was given based on the checklist. One month later, both groups were given an OSCE. Results: : the two groups were homogenous in terms of age, sex, and grade point average (P>0.05). After the intervention, a significant difference between the two groups was observed in the history test, professional behavior and examination between the two groups (P<0.001). Conclusion: using the patient as educator method can be a suitable method to enhance the skill level of history taking, examination and professional behavior of medical students.