Medical Double Talents: How Medical Students Living with Chronic Conditions Teach Their Peers

• Recognizing the person behind the patient

• Understanding that everyone could be a patient

• Gaining insight into perspectives and perspective-taking

• Expected improvement of communication and attitude

• Valuable curriculum addition and preparation for clinical internships

• Predicted contribution empathetic behavior

1) “Thanks to this session, I’ve realized that patients are everywhere. People you wouldn’t expect or people with conditions that aren’t visible often keep things to themselves. Once you start paying attention, you begin to notice visible things, like how many people walk with a limp or use a wheelchair. Everyone knows someone [with a condition], but it’s not something people talk about.” [Student – Focus group]

2) “You begin to reflect on how a chronic illness, whether you want to or not, can become a defining part of a patient’s identity. As a doctor, it’s essential to distinguish the illness from the person. Additionally, I realized that I had insufficient insight into the profound impact of a chronic illness on a patient, but this lecture has significantly improved my understanding.” [Student – Questionnaire]

3) “Apart from the conversation technique, [the MDT session] also influences the group dynamics. Which in turn influences all learning during the communication lesson, because you need that vulnerability to be able to learn about your own communication.” [Communication teacher – Focus group]

4) “I think it’s also important to keep in mind when working with real patients, these (MDTs) are also real patients. So to take it with you into the internships and remember: ‘Okay, just treat patients as you would normally treat someone.” [Student – Focus group]

5) “And ultimately, if you have that empathy and that idea [of what it is like to be chronically ill], which you learned from those MDTs, then you can incorporate that into your conversations. Which will really improve your conversations and conversation skills.” [Communication teacher – Focus Group]

• Empowerment from sharing personal experiences in guest lectures

• Reflection on own story after sharing this out loud

6) “And for me, it was also really an ‘eye-opening’ experience that a whole group of people would accept your entire story as the truth. I really didn’t expect to get that out of the session, but I’ve often had moments with doctors where, in the small remarks they make or the questions they ask, you can sense that they doubt whether what I’m saying is true, or if it was really that bad, or if it truly limits me. But these students didn’t question what I was telling them. That really helped me feel empowered in my ‘double role’, because I thought: ‘Hey, the experiences I’ve had are real, and they were tough, and things like that shouldn’t have happened.’” [MDT – Focus group]

7) “What I’ve noticed in myself is that sometimes I don’t fully realize – or I try to acknowledge that I have certain limitations. But in my day-to-day activities, I often don’t act like they’re there. So maybe I haven’t accepted it as much as I thought I had. When people ask me, ‘What do you need to keep in mind?’ I find myself thinking: ‘Actually, I don’t always pay attention to this, or that.’ That made me reflect: How well do I take care of myself?’ and ‘When do I allow myself to rest?’ Sometimes I push myself too far because I’m not experiencing symptoms at the moment. And now that I’m talking about this more and people ask questions, it’s made me think even more deeply about it.” [MDT – Focus group]

8) “I’ve noticed that my story has changed a bit—not in big ways, but in small things—and that I’m making it more personal because I’ve found that it just has more impact that way. I think that in the beginning, I maybe didn’t quite dare to do that yet. But now I notice that when I do, it actually goes well, and I still feel okay. And that gives it more impact, and I find that valuable somehow—that feeling of: ‘Oh, if I tell it like this, maybe it can reach the students just a little bit more, and help me get across what I really want to share.’” [MDT – Focus group]

• Inspiring students to share personal experiences

• Improving group bonds, trust and active engagement in group discussions

• Appreciation of MDTs

• Addressing taboos around health conversations

9) “I had expected that after hearing the story, they would just have a brief discussion and then take a break. I thought I would refer back to what we had learned in my next modules, but instead, immediately a whole group conversation started about the health conditions that students have themselves.” [Communication teacher – Focus group]

10) “Everyone shared things afterward, including things that made me think, ‘Oh, I didn’t actually know that about you.’ It really helps you become a bit more open, and you get to know more about each other—things we wouldn’t have known otherwise.” [Student – Focus group]

• Authentic personal experiences

• Focus on experiences over students’ performance

• Relatability of MDTs as peer students

• The power of MDTs’ vulnerability

• Student-led dialogue and pre-existing group dynamics

• Absence of background information

• MDT-dependent impact of guest lecture

• Influence educators

11) “I find it especially useful because they are students our age. This makes the impact of a chronic illness even clearer, as it allows for a better comparison with our own lives.” [Student – Questionnaire]

12) “This way, we could discuss experiences of being chronically ill with someone our age and from the same study. That made me feel much more comfortable asking questions, and I also felt that the answers aligned with what I wanted to know.” [Student – Questionnaire]

13) “I would have liked to know which illness the person has in advance to prepare more specific questions.” [Student – Questionnaire]

14) “I liked that time was spent on other things than just the illness itself.”’ [Student – Questionnaire]