Family-Centered Experience Program Newsletter - Spring 2021

Spring 2021

FCE Volunteer Family update Our FamilyCentered Experience: ‘Enjoyable and educational’

commitment to excellent patient care, kindness and consideration. This experience made me ask them how I can be a better parent of a patient to get the most out of our doctor visits.

by Katherine “Katie” Gettmann My family joined the FamilyCentered Experience over a year ago — and I’m so happy we got connected with such a great program.

Pictured from left, Tyler Gettmann, Miles Gettmann, Katie Gettmann and Maizie Gettmann

We learned about the opportunity through my son’s daycare (Trinity) in Scranton. Miles has a rare lung disorder, which is why he was placed at Trinity about 3 years ago. They have been a blessing.

Thankfully, he’s been growing out of his lung disorder and no longer needs to be on oxygen unless he gets sick. But we had a long journey of medical appointments and sleep studies to get to this point.

Sharing our experience and meeting the students has been both enjoyable and educational for our family.

We had the pleasure of working with two groups of students during our time with the Family-Centered Experience. The compassion and dedication we witnessed was inspiring!

First we worked with Caitlin and Jason, and most recently with Nathan and Kinza. Their questions were impressive, and I could immediately tell they

wanted to learn how to build a better relationship with their patients.

I explained how I thought the most important characteristics in a doctor were being caring, honest about what they know and don’t know and open to conversations about the best options for treatment.

At first when Miles was put on oxygen, his doctor wasn’t completely sure what was wrong and we appreciated that he told us that, even if it was hard to hear. He committed to helping us figure it out as fast as possible and we were linked with a team of specialists at Boston Children’s Hospital.

The students were also interested in how Miles’ medical situation affected our daily lives. The questions they asked made me reflect on my family’s experience in ways I hadn’t thought about before.

Their eagerness to learn and grow as medical students showed their

Building healthier lifestyles starts with building positive relationships with the doctors. The patient should be open to taking medical advice and the doctor open to questions and suggestions from the patient to discuss.

The Family-Centered Experience gives real-world examples of what a patient encounters in their daily life and how doctors can better assist them through the process of treatment.

Linking families and medical students for this program is an outstanding idea for students to learn from the patient’s point of view. In turn, I also learned more about what I believe is important in the patient-doctor relationship for optimum care.

Thank you so much to Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine for offering this program — and thank you to the students for letting us share our story!

FCE Volunteer Family Update | Spring 2021

Medical students reflect on experience with FCE volunteer family

by Kinza Abbas and Nathan Sanders The Family-Centered Experience (FCE) was a deciding factor that attracted us to the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine because it was an opportunity to immerse ourselves in the patient experience, get involved with our community members and learn skills that can’t be taught in a classroom.

Our FCE family members are, in a sense, our first patients.

It’s our first time as training physicians that we delve deep into a patient’s experience — a stranger’s experience. The family that we’ve been paired with has been incredibly open and honest about their personal health and their interactions with the healthcare system.

The experience offered us a unique perspective we couldn’t have gotten anywhere else. It wasn’t limited to the disease or the diagnosis — rather, it was the whole experience we got to peek into. Our FCE family gave us an experience that will change our practice and professional identity forever. A good physician can treat illnesses, but a great physician can connect with their patients as well.

That’s what the Family-Centered Experience builds in us.

We explored what it’s like to be a parent of a child who struggles with medical challenges. We learned about the stresses of working, maintaining a marriage and raising a growing family while having a unique disease — all during a pandemic.

One of the most valuable discussions we’ve had was on the subject of how physicians handle situations they’re unsure about. Before this discussion, we both believed that physicians had to appear knowledgeable at all times. But in speaking with our FCE family, we heard why they believed a physician being honest about a gap in knowledge was something they valued and respected. We both left that conversation with a renewed perspective and a deeper understanding of physician-patient interactions.

Sanders

Abbas

“Our FCE family gave us an experience that will change our practice and professional identity forever.”

It’s so valuable to hear a patient’s perspective on their interactions with the healthcare system. We’ve talked about specific examples of good and bad interactions our family has had with physicians and other healthcare workers, and that’s helped us think about how we can make our interactions with patients more meaningful.

One of the most important things we learned: Disease in a family alters every other aspect of life. And for our family, resilience, adaptability and a good support group keep their lives full and rewarding.

FCE Volunteer Family Update | Spring 2021

Family-Centered Experience program update: What’s next?

Community volunteers needed

Happy spring!

We’re feeling the change in the seasons as the days get longer, the weather gets warmer and we enjoy the sunshine after a long winter hibernation.

Interested in partnering with the medial school to help students identify community needs and develop service learning, advocacy and volunteer initiatives designed to address them?

And as we welcome spring, we’re also preparing for the arrival of over 100 new medical students who will begin their first year at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine.

Areas of interest include:

Second-year students are moving out of the preclinical setting to their third year of medical school, where they will be integrated into the patient care setting through a longitudinal integrated curriculum, which offers inpatient and outpatient learning experiences.

As students enter this clinical phase, they’ll take with them the valuable insights, information and personal stories shared by their volunteer families — all of which remind them of the personal side of medicine and the influence doctors have on the way patients view themselves and their conditions.

Thanks to you for participating in the FCE program.

Our students wouldn’t have this opportunity without you!

What’s next In the next few weeks, we’ll ask for volunteers to support our new student arrivals and second-year students through the FCE program.

And we’re planning a summer event (in person, if possible) in appreciation of our FCE volunteers! New and current students can greet their families and participate in the fun.

We’ll follow protocols set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Watch for the event date and location in coming issues. You’ll receive an invitation to the event once the date and location are confirmed.

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Community engagement

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Service learning & community-based research

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Community health needs assessments

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Advocacy

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Cultural competency

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Social determinants of health/medically underserved communities

Contact Carly Ellman, FCE program director, at 570-955-1338 or cellman@som.geisinger.edu.

Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine is committed to non-discrimination in all employment and educational opportunities.

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