Tell Me Your Story: Experiential learning using in‐home interviews of healthy older adults

Purpose To create a curriculum innovation for early preclinical medical students to explore personal perspectives by listening to and learning from the lived experience of community‐living older adults. Method Tell Me Your Story (TMYS) paired first‐year medical students (MS1s) with community‐dwelling older adult partners (OAPs) residing in the independent living portion of a continuing care retirement community (CCRC) for a half‐day educational experience. MS1s conducted 1‐hour semi‐structured interviews with their OAP and then formed small groups with geriatric faculty members to explore experiences and views that were either reinforced or challenged. The authors evaluated the effectiveness of this exercise using post‐activity surveys. A mixed‐methods analysis of 7 years of data (2013–2019) was conducted. Results TMYS had 1251 MS1 participants from 2013 to 2019. Students completed 1052 surveys for a response rate of 84%. During the semi‐structured interview with OAP, the frequency of issues discussed included relationships (94%), professionalism/art of medicine (91%), healthcare accessibility (83%), death/dying/grieving/loss (72%), nutrition (69%), ethics (64%), and cultural competence (61%). Exactly 97% (n = 1023) responded that the overall organization was “good, very good or excellent.” The most prominent themes identified by student responses highlighted person‐centered care, patient perspective, life experience/personal stories, and doctor–patient relationship. Fifty‐three faculty members completed the post‐program survey. Exactly 100% (53/53) rated the quality of this exercise as an educational experience high. Conclusion TMYS was highly valued by students and provided an important experiential learning activity in preclinical medical education. Themes related to person‐centered care emerged from the intervention.