Oldal 178 [178]
Part V. Digital Media and Storytelling in University Courses ] 177
suffering from the condition. Patients found it liberating to tell the story
of their disease and the films have since been shown in nursing education
(O’Neill, et al., 2018).
The dissemination of digital stories on social media platforms can also
successfully contribute to prevention activities by highlighting issues that
are less represented in mainstream media, such as HIV infection, unwanted
pregnancies, and the impact of smog. The Cambridge Patient Voices“ program
has also incorporated easy-to-share digital stories into its e-learning curricula
to raise the quality of health services. Their educational program aimed to
humanize healthcare through sharing personal stories alongside statistics
and graphics. The project leaders, Pip Hardy and Tony Sumner aimed to
improve the healthcare system by understanding both institutional and
individual perspectives; in this sense, digital storytelling was be used as a
quality assurance tool. Doctors and nurses were confronted with situations
such as the impact of alienation on communication, inhuman conditions, and
behavior towards patients, and helped healthcare workers to empathize better
with their patients. Because these stories involved trauma, two facilitators
joined the group during the workshop to help participants in crisis situations.
Creating an atmosphere of trust is also a central issue in such projects, and
to this end, the group members had dinner together on the first evening of
the three-day workshop and the facilitators offered to share a meal on the
second day. Another important aspect is that the workshop was followed up
on. Patients who were unable to express themselves verbally for some reason
were given the opportunity to express their views (Lambert, 2002/2013). DST
has also been included in the training of physiotherapists, radiotherapists,
and nurses as a useful method for developing communication and empathy
skills. Students participated in workshops with cancer patients, people with
long-term illnesses, and psychiatric carers, giving them the opportunity to
interact directly with people who were struggling with the problems they
were being trained to treat (McLean, 2018).
Patients’ healthcare experiences do not always reach doctors; for this
reason, trainers introduced patient-generated digital stories into the training
of medical students with the primary aim of developing students’ reflective
thinking. Then, in their own digital stories, students were asked to reflect
on their clinical experiences, most of which were about the pressures faced
by those on the front line of healthcare. The students were liberated by the
reflective process and the videos later became teaching materials that illustrate
the emotional, ethical and professional challenges of the medical profession
(Anderson & Kinnair, 2018).
DST was also used to promote sensitization in the training of Latino
students at the University of Colorado who produced digital stories and
experienced the direct benefits of the method. The participants created
® http://www.patientvoices.org.uk/