New International Project: Public and Patient Involvement in Interprofessional Education (PULPIT)

On January 8-9th, the PULPIT project team gathered in Lisbon to kick-off a 3-year pan-European project to develop international guidelines and educational resources to support the involvement of patients in interprofessional education of undergraduate health care students. Cathy Kline attended the meeting on behalf of UBC’s Patient & Community Partnership for Education (PCPE) which is a partner on the project along with universities and patient associations from Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, and Slovenia.

The project aims to fill a gap in early training when patient interaction and students’ understanding of different health professional roles are limited. It is the first multi-center European collaboration of its kind to develop and test the active involvement of patients in the early stages of training.

“The genesis of this project lies in my collaboration with Elsa Mateus, a patient partner in rheumatology. We noticed a lot of patient and public involvement in research, but not in education. We explored the web and found the works of groups from Maastricht and UBC, which stood out for their innovative approaches. Our engagement with the Maastricht group revealed their inspiration from UBC, prompting us to extend an invitation across the Atlantic. This led to the formation of a consortium with these esteemed global and European leaders. With PULPIT, we aim to not just inspire but also to train and provide tools to European Higher Education institutions, enabling dissemination of these exemplary educational practices,” says project lead Ricardo Ferreira.

Ricardo is the first full-time researcher at the new Nursing Research, Innovation and Development Centre of Lisbon (CIDNUR) which was the vision of Dr. Andreia Silva Costa, a professor at the Nursing School of Lisbon.

“PULPIT is the first big project that Ricardo is coordinating at CIDNUR and we are proud of his path,” says Andreia.

The PULPIT program builds on the Patient as a Person Foundation which was started by Matthijs Bosveld and Sjim Romme in 2017 when they were students at Maastricht University (UM). The pair were awarded the UM student prize for their initiative which has now become a core part of the curriculum with over 1,000 students completing the module annually.

“We stand on the shoulders’ of giants in the field at UBC,” said Matthijs at the kick-off meeting.

The project is funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. Stay tuned for project updates!