Lessons learned from the experiences of patients with long-term conditions: recommendations for enhancing the undergraduate medical curriculum

The importance of involving patients in medical education is widely accepted, but their contribution to medical curriculum design is not well documented. Patients have the potential to bring a unique perspective and more refined experience to curriculum development. This applies particularly to those with long-term conditions (LTCs) who have multiple exposures to doctors throughout their healthcare journey. The aim of this study is to explore what views patients with LTCs have on the attributes medical students require to have, in order to provide them with high-quality care. Ten patients with LTCs, encompassing both primary and secondary care over a broad set of demographics, were interviewed by telephone using a semi-structured questionnaire. The interviews were recorded using a digital voice recorder and manually transcribed verbatim onto a Microsoft Word document for thematic analysis using NVIVO software and following Braun and Clarke's six-phase framework. Five themes have emerged highlighting where the care of LTC patients could be improved: 'advocacy'; 'compassion'; 'the desire to be acknowledged as an individual'"; acknowledgement of their expertise"; and 'benefits of continuity of care'. The findings make a major contribution to undergraduate and postgraduate clinical training development. They reinforce themes in healthcare which need more emphasis in the medical curriculum, whilst simultaneously highlighting that even well-recognised concepts such as patient-centred holistic care, are not well implemented in the context of actual practice.