Brazil Visit: Lessons from a pilot Health Mentors program at BAHIANA

In October, Cathy Kline visited BAHIANA School of Medicine and Public Health in Salvador, Brazil. Since 2022, Patient & Community Partnership for Education (PCPE) has been collaborating with BAHIANA to pilot a Health Mentors program based on UBC’s model in which students from different disciplines learn about chronic disease and disability from a mentor with lived experience.

Cathy met with program staff and participants from the BAHIANA Health Mentors pilot program which ran from April to October 2023 with 5 mentors from a peer support program at a local multidisciplinary clinic specializing in treating patients with Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 (HTLV) and 16 students from medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, and psychology.

There is tremendous enthusiasm at BAHIANA for the idea that patients possess unique expertise in their lived experience and are capable mentors for health care students.

“Health Mentors gave a name and a platform to what we have been trying to do with the Centre for the past 21 years. It gives opportunities and validity to the patient association to have the support of the university behind them,” said Aide Nunes, Program Coordinator.

The pilot includes a qualitative research project, led by Dr. Milena Lisboa, to study program outcomes and how to bridge sociocultural differences between mentors and students.

“There is a lot we can learn from the BAHIANA experience that can inform the development of infrastructure and supports needed to advance equity, diversity and inclusion of underrepresented groups in patient engagement at UBC and beyond.” says Cathy.