Renewal of Medical School Intellectual Disability Curriculum: Building capacity to better prepare medical graduates to meet the complex health care needs of people with an intellectual disability | Department of Developmental Disability Neuropsychiatry (3DN)

Australia’s higher education sector plays a key role in preparing medical graduates to enter into the health workforce and meet the diverse healthcare needs of our population. However, most medical students will graduate with little or no understanding of the specific health care needs of people with an intellectual disability, a population which experiences a disproportionately high burden of disease and illness and poorer health outcomes when compared to the general population.

This study comprised the first phase of a larger project that aims to develop and implement a national tertiary educational framework in the area of intellectual disability physical and mental health.

Aims

determine and quantify how medical schools are currently preparing medical graduates to meet the health care needs of people with an intellectual disability,
describe both the barriers and facilitators for inclusion of intellectual disability physical and mental health curriculum content faced by medical schools,
compile intellectual disability physical and mental health curriculum resources, and
identify and engage intellectual disability leaders (champions) from medical schools across Australia

Publications from this project

Trollor JN; Ruffell B; Tracy J; Torr JJ; Durvasula S; Iacono T; Eagleson C; Lennox N, 2016, 'Intellectual disability health content within medical curriculum: An audit of what our future doctors are taught', BMC Medical Education, vol. 16, doi: 10.1186/s12909-016-0625-1
Trollor JN; Eagleson C; Turner B; Tracy J; Torr JJ; Durvasula S; Iacono T; Cvejic RC; Lennox N, 2018, 'Intellectual disability content within tertiary medical curriculum: How is it taught and by whom?', BMC Medical Education, vol. 18, doi: 10.1186/s12909-018-1286-z
Trollor JN; Eagleson C; Ruffell B; Tracy J; Torr JJ; Durvasula S; Iacono T; Cvejic RC; Lennox N, 2020, ‘Has teaching about intellectual disability healthcare in Australian medical schools improved? A 20-year comparison of curricula audits’, BMC Medical Education. 2020, vol. 20, doi: 10.1186/s12909-020-02235-w