I MUST SAY: Hospital field trips should be compulsory, because everyone gets dumber the moment they step through the hospital gates.
For a long time, this question has stuck with me.
It started when I volunteered at a hospital two years ago, helping patients and their families with all kinds of questions. And I mean all kinds:
How do I register?
How do I get a refund?
When and where should I get this test done?
Which way do I go? (Even though there are enough signs to mark every single direction.)
Which department should I see based on my symptoms?
Why haven’t my test results come out yet?
I couldn’t blame anyone for this. It was only after I entered medical school that I realized: we were never really taught how to behave in a hospital, either as a patient or a family member.
We all know that when we are sick, we should go to the hospital. We also played "visiting a doctor" back in kindergarten. And that, is the entire lesson. But the actual practice, including the procedures of registering, getting an exam or even surgery, the necessity of waiting, where to seek help instead of simply make a complaint via 12315. We learn none of it. And it becomes even harder when we are stressed and worried about the disease itself.
The procedure of “visiting a doctor” may sound easy, but in real world the system of hospital is complicated. What’s worse, for patients and their families, it would be really hard to learn or think through in the moment.
We should make it common sense, so that questions like these disappear: Where do I register? How do I cancel an appointment? Which way do I go? How does a hospital actually work? And why aren’t most mistakes the doctor’s fault?
I’ve had enough of the current approach: doctors are repetitively taught to be more patient, clearer, more accessible (which we should still do), and everything patients do should be understood and tackled by hospital staff. Why not educate patients directly before they ever become patients?
When I came up with this “hospital visit education” idea, I was shocked that no one had done this, or at least no one had talked about it. Yet it seems so obvious. An actual trip to a local hospital really helps, instead of a pretend exercise in a classroom.
So I went to search for any prior study about this. It turns out that there is a whole academic field called “health literacy”, where researchers care about people’s ability to access, understand, and use health information. And there’s data supporting that better health literacy improves health outcomes, reduces medication errors, and even lowers ER visits.
And actually “no one” is my illusion. There are already educational intervention attempts. Some schools have implemented health literacy programs for adolescents, with real success, around the world.
Organizing such field trips is hard, as it adds work for schools and hospital staff. But it’s necessary, just like other missing pieces in our education: how to pay insurance, how local institutions work, and how to ask for help. It is time for us to bring these topics into compulsory education without simply dumping more burden on frontline workers.
We teach kids to cross streets safely. We should also teach them to walk through hospital gates without losing their minds. The first time you truly need these skills, you’ll be scared, in pain, or in a hurry. That’s no time to learn. That’s why such learning should happen in compulsory education.