MINDS Task Force
MINDS (Medical Intervention in a NeuroDiverse Society) is a Task Force affiliated to MSS Diverging Minds. It was created with the goal of assembling an evidence-based workshop to train future healthcare professionals to offer better patient-centered care to their neurodivergent patients. We are currently a team of 11 medical students leading this initiative and are concurrently working on two research projects to gather the necessary information necessary to build a strong evidence-based workshop. The end goal of this project is to advocate for the integration of the workshop into the undergraduate medical education curriculum.
SURVEY FOR FUTURE MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS
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With the help of a PI, we are designing a formal survey that will assess students’ knowledge regarding the specific issues faced by the neurodivergent population and the level of comfort experienced by students working with these patients. A few of our team members, along with a professor from the McGill Family Medicine Department, have sparked initiative for this project.
SURVEY FOR NEURODIVERGENT INDIVIDUALS AND COMMUNITY ADVOCATES
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In parallel to the aforementioned survey, a few members of our team are working on another formal survey in collaboration with an associate professor at the McGill School of Communication Sciences and Disorders. This survey will be distributed to neurodivergent individuals and community advocates in order to find out more about their needs within the healthcare setting. Through background research, we found certain gaps in the literature regarding the unmet needs of the neurodivergent population within the healthcare setting. We wish to contribute towards fulling the gap with this survey.
FINAL GOAL: AN EVIDENCE-BASED WORKSHOP
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The final goal of the MINDS Taskforce is to create a workshop targeted to future healthcare professionals that will help them feel better prepared to serve the neurodivergent community throughout their career. We aim to integrate the workshop as an official component in the current medical curriculum. We are currently gearing up for the first iteration of this workshop.
As the two survey projects mentioned above come to completion, we wish to make use of the results collected to re-evaluate and generate an improved and further evidence-based version of the current workshop.