What does it feel to be a person living with chronic disease in B.C.’s health care system? The UBC Interprofessional Health Mentors Program (HMP) seeks to help students from the interdisciplinary UBC health programs to consider this question through a unique educational experience which will help them better understand the perspective of the people they will be caring for in their future careers.
Through HMP groups of students from different disciplines learn together from and with mentors. Students include fields such as pharmacy, physical therapy, nursing, occupational kinesiology and medicine. The mentors are “experts” in their lives and help students learn how health care providers can best give support. Health mentors can be adult patients/clients with chronic conditions/disabilities or caregivers who provide long-term care to family members and friends. Over 16 months, the student groups visit their mentors twice a semester, focusing on specific topics.
One HMP mentor is Mario Gregorio, a person living with dementia. Mario is committed to breaking down the stigma associated with Alzheimer disease and other dementias and feels that working with future health professionals is one way he can do that.
“The health mentors program gave me an opportunity to take small steps toward creating awareness, especially around that fact that the words and language we use in looking after people with dementia can impact how we deliver care,” says Mario. “I use my participation as a way to drive home that what a health provider writes in a chart can affect the future of the person living with dementia.”
When Mario is not volunteering his time as a Health Mentor he is actively involved with the Alzheimer Society of B.C.’s Leadership Group of People Living with Dementia and was profiled in this year’s Alzheimer Society campaign aimed at breaking down the stigma associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.
“Being out there in the public eye helps reduce the stigma about a disability because it creates a comfort zone for me and the community to discuss dementia,” says Mario.
The UBC Health Mentors program is looking for volunteer Health Mentors (or caregivers) who live with a chronic illness and want to share their healthcare expertise with our students to help them learn about patient centered care. Health Mentors should live in the Metro Vancouver area and be comfortable discussing their health concerns.
“It gives me a sense of accomplishment to help the students think beyond textbooks and classroom instructions. As a person with lived experience I can give them a different perspective and help them develop a better sensitivity to the needs of people living with disabilities,” says Mario.
The program starts in September 2018 and runs until December 2019. See the program website https://pcpe.health.ubc.ca/healthmentors for more information, and contact the program coordinator jen.macdonald@ubc.ca to apply.
