Faculty Development

The ‘patient voice’ can be incorporated into clinical teaching using a range of resources, including video, case scenarios, sound recordings and e-learning resources. Many of these resources are freely available (such as the ‘Patient Voices’ programme available on the internet) or through shareware, others can be purchased or they can be developed by teachers and learning technologists to suit specific purposes. Examples include interactive computerised tutorials on various topics, such as epileptic seizure classification (Farrar et al., 2008) or breaking bad news (Cleland et al., 2007). The Wellcome Trust and WHO have produced a set of electronic and printed resources on many aspects of international medicine. The References and Further reading sections include links and information on examples of such resources.

Resources can be included in lectures (for example, embedded in PowerPoint presentations), seminars or tutorials to provide illustrative material or trigger scenarios about different clinical conditions or situations, and can be particularly helpful when it is inappropriate or difficult for learners to work with real patients. For example, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has developed an assessment of clinical skills using videos of very ill children. The Royal College of Ophthalmologists also uses video assessments in examinations, and personal digital assistants (PDA, a handheld or palmtop computer) have been used as an assessment tool (Van Schoor et al., 2006).