Awards
2009: Best use of New Media
- Winner: The National Genetics Education and Development Centre
- Runner up: NHS Barking and Dagenham
Winning project: Telling Stories, Undertanding Real Life Genetics
Genetics is becoming increasingly relevant and important to all healthcare professionals, not only understanding the genetics of single gene disorders but understanding modes of inheritance and the genetic contribution to common disorders and responses to medication.
Telling Stories, Understanding Real Life Genetics www.geneticseducation.nhs.uk/tellingstories) is a collection of stories from patients and health professionals highlighting the relevance of genetics in day to day clinical practice. Hosted by the NHS National Genetics Education and Development Centre (NGEDC), this new media provides a free, web-based education resource for NHS health professionals. Telling stories allows healthcare professionals direct access to real stories and video interviews set within an education framework. The storytellers themselves help us overcome the barrier of perceived irrelevance of genetics to practice and support those who are teaching and learning about genetics. Since January 2009 nearly three thousand visitors have explored the stories.
The website provides an effective channel of communication to facilitate and support healthcare education in genetics. The website supports healthcare professionals and educators in their teaching and it supports healthcare staff to explore their own practice through a ‘story box toolkit’ of features that makes explicit the links to genetics healthcare practice. Many health professionals express a lack of confidence and understanding about genetics and its relevance to their practice. By using real life stories the online resource provides rich, powerful and memorable accounts of genetics and its role in the complex lives of people, to promote understanding and to support healthcare educators in enhancing genetics competence.
Judge: Paul Caplan, The Internationale
Judge's Comment: This was superb.
