Grant: Operating Grant - HIV/AIDS CBR Program - General

Background: Studies show that in North America, medical school curricula do not include enough education on sexual health and HIV-related counselling; however, medical students believe that such teaching should be part of their curriculum. Education research indicates that innovative teaching methods such as interactive workshops are more effective than didactic lectures. Purpose: This study aims to determine if an HIV counselling and testing Simulated Clinical Encounter for medical students involving people living with HIV (PHAs) as Patient Instructors is an acceptable, effective and meaningful learning tool, and explore the different roles that PHAs can have in the HIV education of healthcare professionals. Methods: Medical students will participate in an HIV counselling and testing training session followed by a Simulated Clinical Encounter involving PHAs as Patient Instructors. The students will provide pre-test counselling, perform a point-of-care HIV test, and deliver post-test counselling to the PHA-Patient Instructors under the supervision of a clinical preceptor. The PHA-Patient Instructors will help create a more realistic clinical encounter by drawing from their real-life experiences and provide feedback and teaching to the students. Surveys, focus groups and interviews will be conducted to collect data on the acceptability and efficacy of this learning exercise and on the roles of PHAs in HIV medical education. Significance: This project brings together medical students, community members, healthcare professionals, and medical educators to give PHAs a strong voice in how their own medical care is taught to healthcare trainees. Data collected from this study has the potential to improve the HIV-related training of healthcare providers and add to the repertoire of innovative teaching methods. This study will also contribute to the limited existing data on involving Patients Instructors in medical training.