In this final episode of the season, we invite special guests Lorraine, Maureen and Keith (patient partners) as well as Jess (researcher/MD from the UK), to reflect on their experiences of participating in and researching engagement, and to comment on previous episodes which might have found some resonance with them.
Don’t miss this one! It’s a rare opportunity to hear patient partners’ heartfelt expressions of gratitude, frustration, and everything in between – and to hear from a researcher/MD what she’s learning as she wraps up her PhD on PPI.
Join hosts Jennifer and Emily as they parse through their guests’ reflections and try to figure out what’s next.
I found this episode interesting, but had some questions.
It would be important to know “when” Keith’s experience with the health minister who made the joke “I’m doubling your salary” occurred. It sounds like the participants in this episode have been doing patient engagement for decades. I find it hard to imagine that that kind of quip would occur now.
I did find Keith’s comments about compensation informative — particularly about how receiving hospital merchandise — t-shirts, mugs, pens etc — felt almost like an insult. And that the one time he received $100, even though not a lot of money, made him feel his work was valued. I also thought the message about having evidence to show patient partners how their work had changed the way care was provided was important. I’m assuming that there are cultural differences in Britain that make voicing dissent in a patient-doctor discussion more challenging than it might be here. I wondered why the participants’ last names were not used in this episode (vs the earlier ones)? Look forward to your next season!
Thanks for your comments Louise – but even more, thanks for listening 🙂
To answer your questions: Keith’s story likely took place about 10 years ago. Yes, it does give it a different context, but it was also the story that really stood out for him. And good question about the last names! We chose to leave them off because of the ‘point’ of the episode. Our other guests had put specific work out into the public or were functioning in their work or academic capacities – traceability was important. This episode was meant to be heard as a collection of responses, like a listener mailbag, where impressions are ‘of the moment’ but of course may change over time. I suppose we could have gone either way, but we made the decision we thought was most reasonable.