National Request for arthritis patient volunteers

[A Former User]

The Patient Partners in Arthritis program is available through 12 hospital/university affiliated sites across Canada - Vancouver, Hamilton, Toronto, London, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, Sherbrooke, St. John's, Quebec City and Kingston

Below are the Toronto Training details. For the other centers Jenn Boyle could put you in touch with the organizer. This takes 3 days of training in anatomy of joints, gait analysis, and a musculoskeletal exam. I have done this and it is helpful to the med students to see the issues demonstrated by a patient with actual symptoms.

It also helps with medical education - med students do not get very much training about musculoskeletal problems.

The Announcement

Great news! Patient Partners in Arthritis will be training new volunteers this Spring! The Patient Partners in Arthritis program is a volunteer opportunity for people with arthritis to help student health care providers increase their understanding of all aspects of arthritis.

The Patient Partners in Arthritis program is available through 12 hospital/university affiliated sites across Canada - Vancouver, Hamilton, Toronto, London, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, Sherbrooke, St. John's, Quebec City and Kingston

Volunteer patients are trained to lead or participate in small group sessions for students in which they help teach a simple technique for joint examination as well as sharing their real life experience of living with arthritis.

This hands-on experience is valuable for the students because it gives them the opportunity to increase their skills and effectiveness in examining, diagnosing and treating people with arthritis.

In Toronto, we work with medical students, residents, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, physician assistants. In addition, we have participated in sessions with community providers.

Most volunteer sessions are in Toronto hospitals affiliated with the University of Toronto. We are sometimes asked to volunteer in other locations for education sessions.

Most frequent volunteer sites:

• • Toronto Western Hospital

• • Toronto General Hospital

• • Mount Sinai Hospital

• • Sunnybrook Health Science Centre

• • Women's College Hospital

• • St. Michael's Hospital

• • St. Joseph's Hospital

• • Trillium Health Partners (Mississauga and Credit Valley Sites)

A diagnosis of osteoarthritis or inflammatory arthritis

• A desire to learn medical terminology and basic anatomy (medical background NOT needed)

• Strong communication skills

• Be available to volunteer 3 - 5 hours per month.

• We recommend you attend at least one session before training to see if you enjoy volunteering with us!

Three weekends in the Spring are needed to train and practise the new skills with ‘veteran' Patient Partners.

Training Session Information

: Introduction to Patient Partners and the Musculoskeletal System (MSK)

April 27th & 28th, 10am-3pm

: How to examine joints for arthritis

May 4th & 5th, 10am-3pm

: Practise! Celebrate graduation! May 25th & 26th, 10am-3pm

Location: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (parking will be covered)

Preparation: Bring your enthusiasm! A t-shirt plus shorts will be needed to learn the hands-on examination of joints.

Training to be a Patient Partners does take commitment, but the impact is great on both the students and the volunteer.

Research has shown that involvement in the Patient Partners in Arthritis program has had a positive impact on the trained patient volunteers through an improved quality of life, better self awareness and the satisfaction of having a contributing role in the medical community.

• Patients participating in the program have an increased understanding of their disease and an improved ability to describe their symptoms and experiences to their physician. Understanding their condition and feeling more comfortable discussing it has helped many patient volunteers gain a greater sense of control and cope more effectively with their arthritis.

• Support, encouragement and inspiration are a reality in each group with the result that they demonstrate not only to each other but to the community at large that it is possible to live well with arthritis.

If you or someone you know would be interested in training, please contact me at jennboyle007@gmail.com

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Best Regards, Jennifer

Toronto Site Coordinator Patient Partners in Arthritis

[A Former User]

thx much for this heads up o this Patient Partners Programme, Anette. I have contacted Jenn Boyle about taking part in this training.

warm regards,

anita l-l

[A Former User]

Hi All

I'm also a Patient Partner in Arthritis and I have really enjoyed it over the years. Learning the anatomy is painful, but the PP team is really patient helping you to learn it and then we practise it at our bi-monthly meetings.

For anyone with Arthritis who isn't game to do the full-blown "Patient Partners in Arthritis" where we actually do the teaching, then there is another option to volunteer in Toronto on Thursday mornings in September as a "passive arthritis patient". The 2nd year students do their rheumatology that month and each student attends an upper body (shoulder, elbow, wrist hand) session and a lower body (hip, knee, ankle foot) session taught by a rheumatologist. We try to provide a volunteer arthritis patient for every 2-3 students which means we need 80 volunteers with arthritis each Thursday morning in Sept to cover all the Toronto / Mississauga teaching hospitals. The students spend the first 45 mins or so taking a "focussed rheumatology history" where they learn about your arthritis story. Then the rheumatologist demos the various joint exams and the students practise them on the volunteer patients. You wear shorts or a tank top so the students can see your joints. Even if you can only do a single session, it's still a help for us.

If you're interested in doing the September "passive patient" gig, please send your name to me via email at nroper@alumni.uwaterloo.ca. Once the sign-up system is ready (in the summer time frame), I'll email you back with instructions. I can also answer any questions that you might have.

........N

PS - if this type of volunteering appeals to you, then you can also volunteer as a "passive patient" for general medical skills at Sunnybrook, Mississauga or Credit Valley Hospital on Thursday or Friday mornings throughout the school year. They send out a list of dates they need people and you pick the ones you want to do. Drop me a line if you're interested (nroper@alumni.uwaterloo.ca) and I'll link you up with the coordinator for the appropriate hospital