Patient-centred learning--back to the future.
BACKGROUND
Historically, medical students learned the art and science of medicine from the patients they encountered. While students were highly motivated to learn through this approach, the serendipitous nature of real practice and the variability in the skills of their teachers proved to be liabilities for learning. This apprenticeship-style education was replaced by a more formal didactic curriculum during the twentieth century.


METHODS
The power of computer technology enables medical educators to recapture the authenticity of patient-centred learning (PCL) through the creation of a virtual practice populated by a panel of virtual patients. In contrast to traditional problem-based learning cases, PCL virtual patients return for multiple visits with their student-doctors, demonstrating how diseases change over time, interact with other diseases and risk factors, and are influenced by psychosocial factors.


CONCLUSIONS
New approaches to pedagogy embodied in patient-centred learning allow the curriculum to be organized around the patients, both real and simulated.
Smith
Stephen R
SR
Brown Medical School, Providence, RI 02912, USA. Stephen_R_Smith@brown.edu
Cookson
John
J
McKendree
Jean
J
Harden
Ronald M
RM
D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction; D003479:Curriculum; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D018802:Patient-Centered Care; D018794:Problem-Based Learning