A first in France: a master class on the patient-patient partnership in reproductive health care
Under the impetus of the heads of the Reproductive Medicine and Reproductive Biology-CECOS departments of the AP-HP. Sorbonne Université and following a meeting between Professor Rachel Lévy (Director of the DMU BIOGEMH, head of the Tenon fertility center), Dr Charlotte Dupont (Head of the CECOS reproductive biology department, Tenon), Pr Anne Bachelot (Head of the endocrinology and reproductive medicine department, PSL) and Professor Catherine Tourette-Turgis, (Founder of the Université des Patients-Sorbonne), the first master class dedicated to the medical support of procreation and aimed at patients was held at the Faculty of Health Sciences in Paris.
The course was launched on November 28, 2024, in the Université Des Patients classrooms on the Pitié Salpêtrière site, and will run until March 20, 2025. The program comprises 53 hours divided into 4 days of face-to-face training, 2 days of distance learning and webinars on topics of interest.
The main objective of the training course is to train men and women to share their “patient” experience in order to improve the quality of the infertility and MPA pathway, through support for other patients in MPA services, as well as advocacy.
The aim is to consolidate their knowledge of the MPA ecosystem, and of all those useful in deploying a partnership approach with the various care services involved in this specific support pathway, which includes not only medical and technical components, but also legal, psychological, social and economic ones.
The announcement of the master class was made on a national level and aroused a great deal of interest in the context of a worldwide decline in fertility and an explosion in MPA activities, following the bioethics law of August 2021 (opening of MPA to unmarried women and female couples, access to societal oocyte self-preservation, partial lifting of anonymity in the context of donation).
The 15 participants were recruited through individual interviews. During these interviews, several categories of expectations were formulated: the desire to benefit from a theoretical base, a need for validation of their support practice for those who already had a practice, a desire to share and debate their lived experience, a need for recognition of their training or patient expertise and a desire to intervene in care services.
Prior to the training course, the teaching team from the Sorbonne University for Patients, and its partner Comment Dire, immersed themselves in the Tenon fertility center, conducting some 15 interviews with professionals and patients. (Participation in consultations with department doctors, etc.).
The activities and places of practice of the speakers. The activities and places of practice of the participants in this master class (hospitals, associations, institutions, the world of research, adult education) were chosen to cover as many of the essential aspects of the subject of MAP and infertility as possible, such as the legislative framework (bioethics law), treatment methods, legal limits, historical developments, etc., as well as the role of the medical staff, legal limits, historical developments, the family and the concept of filiation, patient movements and the levers of health democracy, psychological impacts, building advocacy, taking into account the patient perspective and ways of integrating patient partners into services.
At the end of the training course, an evaluation will be proposed, and a report will be drawn up, if necessary, to develop and enrich the curriculum for future classes.
[*] This master class has received financial support from Merck and Cooper Surgical.
Pr Rachel Lévy, Director of DMU BIOGEMH
Pr Catherine Tourette-Turgis, Founder of Université des Patients- Sorbonne
Maryline Rébillon, Director of Comment Dire
Dr Charlotte Dupont, Head of Reproductive Biology Department CECOS, Hôpital Tenon.