Dotsa Bitove Wellness Academy

I had a unique opportunity to visit the Dotsa Bitove Wellness Academy, a centre for arts and learning for individuals with mild to moderate dementia, which also offers activities for family members and care providers to share their experiences. This is a non-clinical setting where the participants do not have medical charts or documentation. Rather, the focus is on relationships and self-expression through art and movement. My role was to learn about the Bitove Academy by engaging with the participants, staff members as well as family members, and to reflect on potential learning opportunities for other medical students in the future.

Engaging with and observing the participants, I appreciated the positive space that the Academy provided for individuals to participate in social activities and interact with one another. After speaking to a participant’s husband, I learned that the time at the centre allowed him to go grocery shopping and take some time for himself to destress, which was valuable for him.

From the perspective of medical education, visiting the Academy offers novel perspective on the social and non-clinical aspect of the lives of individuals living with dementia and the experiences of their family members. Most of our medical education, particularly in the senior years, is focused on the diagnosis and management of disease in clinic or hospital-based settings. However, engaging with the elderly population with dementia and their family members would allow junior medical students to gain a new perspective of ‘participants’ (whom we otherwise refer to as ‘patients’) in a non-clinical setting. There is certainly some value to this experience, and is perhaps most beneficial for second year medical students who have had some experience in medical school, but before they begin their clinical journeys. Additionally, with respect to the duration of the experience, as a non-clinical Academy, even a one-day visit would help to raise awareness about the program and services available, and gain insight from the perspective of family members. However, the experience may not have significant return of investment beyond a one day visit.

This Academy establishes a new perspective of care in the community, as individuals live their regular lives outside of their role as patients, which we otherwise may not experience in our training.

- Usman T.