Medical Students Recognize Patients as Teachers through MU’s Legacy Teachers™ Program

The University of Missouri School of Medicine celebrated the important role that patients and their families play in the education of medical students at the 12th annual Legacy Teachers™ luncheon today in MU’s Reynolds Alumni Center.

The Legacy Teachers™ program, which culminates with a luncheon each year, offers third-year medical students the opportunity to submit essays, artwork or poetry describing a patient they recognized as one of their greatest teachers. At the 12th annual Legacy Teachers™ luncheon, 32 third-year students honored 15 of these special teachers.

Emma Frank, a third-year medical student from Rolla, Missouri, said that her legacy teacher is someone who has helped define her role as a health care provider since they first met during her rural clerkship at Mercy Hospital in Lebanon, Missouri.

“My legacy teacher taught me to remain mindful of my surroundings in hospital and clinics, and to focus on the acute needs of the patient in front of me,” Frank said. “The patient taught me to stay motivated, optimistic, grateful and patient, and to consider the context of our interaction in their lives.”

The original MU program has been adopted by other medical schools across the country including the University of Kansas-Wichita, the University of North Carolina and Tufts University.

With the program well established at MU, representatives from other medical schools across the country visit MU to join faculty, staff, students, patients and their families at the luncheon to experience the event. Following the luncheon, representatives meet with MU’s organizers to discuss implementing the Legacy Teachers™ program at their own medical schools. This year, representatives from the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, the Medical College of Wisconsin, the Medical University of South Carolina, and the University of Michigan attended the luncheon.

For more information, view the 2017 Legacy Teachers video below.